


Streets of Philadelphia

by AlexMeg



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (AU), Abused Sam Winchester, Affectionate Dean Winchester, Alternate Timelines, Angry Dean Winchester, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Big Brother Dean, Broken Sam Winchester, Caring Dean Winchester, Dark Dean Winchester, Episode: s05e01 Sympathy for the Devil, Episode: s05e03 Free to Be You and Me, Episode: s05e04 The End, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester Whump, Scared Sam Winchester, Season/Series 05, Tortured Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-14 15:24:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 117,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13592934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexMeg/pseuds/AlexMeg
Summary: Dean wakes up to a bruised and battered Sam chained to his bed. Everything seems to point to Dean being responsible, but there are things that just don't fit; old wounds on Sam's body that were never there before and how he acted like this wasn't the first time. It turns out that Dean's been sent to a horribly different world. Abused!Hurt!Sam - Caring!Protective!Dean. Set early S5.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter Warnings: spoilers up to 5.01
> 
> Credits: This story prompt originally belongs to an amazing fanfiction author pen-named authoressnebula, but it was taken up and written by another equally excellent writer who goes by purplehairedwonder. So, all the credits for this plotline idea go to them. Read 'The Cancer Inside' by purplehairedwonder, as that was the story that brought this story and 'Abusing Forgiveness' into birth.
> 
> The link: s/7275937/1/The-Cancer-Inside

 

 

The silence in the car was the furthest thing from comfortable and easy, a far cry from the companionable quiet that used to settle between them before the terrible events of the past year, before Ruby and the angels came between them and drifted them apart, before the demon blood-drinking, before Dean went to Hell and left behind a grieving, desperate younger brother spiraling downwards and wide out of control.

And at the very end of it all, like a domino effect, the chain of all these occurrences led Sam to set Lucifer loose and effectively doom the world to Hell. Just the cherry on top of the pile of all of his other screw-ups.

It had begun with him misplacing his trust in a demon. He fed on her blood and became greedy for the rush of power and the high it brought, listened to her when she twisted his mind into thinking that he was going to be able to save Dean by committing those horrible deeds, that he was doing everything for the greater good, when underneath it all, her intentions had not been towards the greater good in any way. Rather, it was entirely for the opposite, for the apocalypse to reign over the Earth. He had inadvertently doomed all of the people on this planet merely due to his own arrogance and stupidity.

And all of it could have been avoided if he had just done the one thing he should have, so obvious and clear now that he couldn't believe how blinded he had been.

If only he had trusted and listened to the one and only person he had always trusted and listened to, who had always had his back and had always had his best interests at heart, none of this would have happened. If only he had listened to Dean, things would have gone a lot differently and in a far better direction.

Except he was too proud to see it then, so out of his mind from the drugging effects of the demon blood, from the need for vengeance that he had sought on behalf of his brother. He had wanted to kill Lilith, had wanted to see the life drain from her eyes for setting those hellhounds loose on Dean, for the way she forced him to watch as his brother got shredded to pieces by invisible claws and jaws on that table.

Even after Dean returned from hell by the courtesy of heaven, despite their non-altruistic reasons, he couldn't let go of his thirst for revenge, and by that time, he was already in too deep. His blood addiction had already reeled him in to the point of no return, even if he had falsely believed at the time that he could go back, convinced himself by the help of Ruby that the ends justified the means and that he was only doing it for the right.

And so, he continued in secret instead, lied to and hid it from his brother. He was discovered a couple of weeks later, and he had seen the fear in his brother's eyes and the flinch when he raised his hand to a demon behind him, had seen the disgust and wariness that later took its place as he looked at him like the monster he truly was. He almost couldn't stand it.

Later on, after seeing what became of the Rugaru they had hunted, seeing himself in Jack Montgomery, he decided to stop. Another hunt, however, with the elderly magicians made him see things in a different perspective, and so he returned to his concealed antics in the dark of the night.

He had believed Dean was too damaged and broken after what he suffered in Hell at the hands of Alistair, and had wanted to take over the role of the stronger one. He couldn't quite tell if this desire was tainted with his egotistical obsession with the sense of power and control (rather, an illusion of it, because he realized now that he had never been more out of control, more powerless than he was under the influence of his addiction) in that year from chugging down demon blood or if it was out of a pure, genuine wish to take the heavy load off from his brother and allow him the time and space to deal with forty years worth of trauma.

In his mind, it had always been the latter, but these days, it was hard to trust anything he told himself. Not after everything that had happened the past year. He told himself many things and they all ended him up at setting the world to fire.

He didn't understand at the time that, on top of the memories of four decades of endless, unimaginable torture, he was only adding to the insurmountable issues on his brother's plate.

At the time, he couldn't understand why his only family had locked and abandoned him in that panic room, left him tied up and screaming from the agonizing cramps and the torturous hallucinations. When he held his big brother down and almost choked the life out of him in that hotel room, when he heard him declare the loathsome words he had once heard his father tell him before he walked out the door anyway, he had still resented him for trying to stop him from saving the world, and possibly even more so, for refusing to be at his side the way he always had.

Before he went into the convent, he began to have second thoughts and considered asking Dean for another chance, so that he could go in there with the one person he really wanted to do this with, come out of those doors winning the war with.

And then he heard the voicemail.

And he decided that it didn't matter anymore if he came out at all.

When he saw Lilith's blood taking the shape of a symbol that signified Lucifer's rise, he finally understood why he had deserved everything. Everything from Dean's wary, disgusted glances to getting locked up in the panic room to the voicemail.

And now he was here. Now he was staring at a brother who couldn't really stand him anymore. When he looked at him nowadays, his cold eyes were only full of underlying distrust and disgust (and maybe some hatred too). He tried to keep it all hidden, Sam could tell, but he saw it anyway.

He saw it in the way his gaze changed whenever he caught sight of him. He saw it in the way he didn't care to talk to him much anymore about anything besides business, besides hunting and monsters and the end of the world (understandable, of course. Who'd want to argue about the best action or thriller movies of last year when they had a planet to save, especially with the person they had to save it  _because_  of in the first place). He saw it in the way he brushed off any of his attempts at any sort of physical contact, as if, perhaps, his touch repulsed him or made him uncomfortable (they were the same hands that he killed with and the same hands he drank demon blood from and the same hands he set the world to fire with, so of  _course_. Of course).

Things were always tense and awkward now, even with obstructions of doors between them. Spending almost all day feeling uneasy and on edge just got exhausting and left him hollowed out. Still, Sam figured it could be a lot worse. He sure as hell deserved a lot worse than what he was getting from Dean right now.

And what he  _really_  deserved was what Dean had promised him in that voicemail he sent right before he went in to kill Lilith, right before what he had hoped would be his end, because it sounded like a far better fate than what would be waiting for him if he did get out, better than having Dean hunt him down and put a bullet or a knife in him like he was just another monster.

And because what did getting out safe and alive matter if the only person who promised to save him had given up on him?

It was a confirmation, of how too far he had gone and that he couldn't go back anymore, not to the person he used to be and not to Dean. It solidified his belief in the fact that he had become the very thing he was so terrified of becoming two years ago, when his father told his brother to kill him if he couldn't save him.

For whatever reason by the time Dean had reached him, he had seemingly changed his mind about doing just that, hence he was still breathing and alive. It didn't exactly make sense since starting the apocalypse should have intensified the abhorrence he heard in his voice on the phone and given him more of a reason to do it, but he supposed he shouldn't be complaining.

In the parking lot of a hospital, Dean had made what he had already known, the way he felt about him now, clear.

It broke something inside of him, despite knowing it already. Hearing it from Dean himself had truly hit it home that he hurt him so bad that he felt Sam could no longer be trusted anymore, couldn't be forgiven. Yet, more than anything, he was resigned. He was defeated. He accepted it and he understood it, because Dean had every right to feel this way about him after it all. He had vowed to himself that he'd dedicate and put everything of him into earning that trust and forgiveness back.

With the depth of the sickening guilt and shame and remorse he felt, sinking down into his chest and into his gut like stones, he knew he'd do whatever he had to, take and give whatever he had to to make it up to him.

…

"Home sweet home," Dean muttered sarcastically as he stood in the threshold. He proceeded to stride forward, dropping his duffel bag beside his bed.

The room they were residing in was no better than their usual predicament. Cobwebs made their home all over the corners of their painted walls, bed-sheets that had a weird scent to them and have definitely been unwashed for months at the very least, dotted with strange, suspicious stains that colored the ugly-textured carpets. Sam placed his duffel bag down at the foot of the bed and sat down on the hard-as-rock mattress. The heavy smell of the toilet a few feet away traveled up his nostrils, urine and faeces mostly, and he was almost a hundred percent sure that they cleaned the bathrooms once or twice a year at best. The motel fan that hung above them kept creaking, as if it was about to fall down on top of them any minute.

Home sweet home.

He heard the door slam shut. Sam looked over to find that he was alone in the room now. He knew Dean was going off to find the closest bar and drink himself to the point of passing out. He would wait up until the middle hours of the night, whenever the bar closed, for a text to tell him to 'not wait up' or if it didn't come, he would have to go and pry his brother off the bar stools, the bartender frustrated and impatient at his brother's refusal to depart. He would say, "one more drink and you're gonna have alcohol poisoning, Dean," or something else along those lines as he forcefully dragged him away. Dean would tell him to fuck off and to stop putting his hands on him (and Sam's hands would feel heavy again with the weight of their sins) except Sam knew that if he'd let go of him, Dean would just trip and fall and maybe break something of him that wasn't already broken yet.

And well, that was pretty much what happened.

Dean jerked away sluggishly. "G-get… get offa me 'fore I sock you in the face." he snapped, words running into each other. Sam felt those words crawl inside his skin, magnify the heaviness of the dirt in his veins, in his body. "Don' touch me."

It had been two months.

Two months since he killed Lilith and set Lucifer loose and the distance between them that had been growing further and further became cemented. Two months of Sam drowning in his shame and guilt and sorrow, in his desperate need to compensate for his terrible deeds, for his betrayal. Two months of him trying to apologize and Dean ignoring and dismissing them, acting fine when every night he would leave their room to bury himself at the bottom of a bottle to numb himself to whatever emotional anguish he felt.

And Sam was tired. Sam was tired of watching his brother slowly kill himself over what he had done to him, over what became of them, over all of their issues.

He grabbed Dean and spun him around to face him. "Dean, I get it, okay? I get it. I hurt you. I screwed up. And I can't… I don't know what to do to make it up to you." He had been trying, as pathetic as his attempts were. He had been the one running out to get all their meals. He had been doing all the laundry work even when it was Dean's turn. He had been finding them hunts every day without any downtime because that was what Dean seemed to want and need. He had been letting him take first showers even if he ended up with all the cold water in the end. He had been working his ass off trying to research on the apocalypse and to find a way to stop it. None of these things he did would ever be enough, he knew that, but they were all he could do and he didn't know what else there was. "And I don't know if anything I do can ever make up for them. I know you're trying to get away from whatever you're feeling, but you can't… you can't keep doing this to yourself. It's going to kill you."

Dean tugged his arm away. "Can do... whatever the 'ell I wan't, Sssam. That's wha' you did the whole ye'r. Guess s'my turn n-nooow, huh?" He threw his arms out, a mirthless, mocking smile on his lips, and then swayed back a few steps. Sam grabbed his arm and pulled him straight. He didn't withdraw this time, perhaps either due to his intoxication and the knowledge that Sam was his best support right now or because he couldn't be bothered to physically push him away anymore. "'Least all I'm doin' is ch-chuggin' whiskey. Wanna know wha's worse, Sssam? Bein' addicted t'-demon blood."

The words were a stab in the heart. Yet, he felt like he was finally getting even a fraction of what he deserved.

"I should have listened to you. I know that, Dean."

"Y'finally realized aft-after you sent th' world t'hell." Dean rasped out a dry chuckle.

"Said I was sorry, Dean," Sam said, soft and contrite. He exhaled slightly, glancing away from the eyes that were ablaze with anger and hurt when it became too much.

Sam had known this conversation was going to strike a nerve, but he started it, and he had to tell Dean the things he wanted to even if he wouldn't remember them tomorrow, and Dean needed to spill all the shit he was keeping in, needed to take it out on the person who put it there in the first place.

"F-fat load'a good thaaat would do, huh?"

"No...no, it wouldn't. But I'm trying to fix this. I'm going to fix this, okay?" Sam swallowed, his eyes and his throat burning. "I'm going to make it all up to you, I swear."

"Wha'ever."

**…**

Dean usually woke up at nine on his normal mornings. On his hungover mornings, he got up a couple hours earlier, usually at around six, so Sam went out just as soon and grabbed breakfast and steaming coffee for the raging headache his brother would be dealing with when he woke up.

He looked for a case at the desk while he waited for him to. There was once a time when he would have smacked Dean's leg into consciousness just for kicks, but now there was too much that had happened, too many betrayals and bad decisions and shitty things that were more his fault than anyone's, between that time and now. Dean could barely handle him touching him, so he didn't think it would be taken well anymore, didn't think he had that kind of place in Dean's life anymore where he could get away with pulling shit like that. So he waited instead.

But the hour hand passed to seven and then eight and then nine, and still, Dean remained asleep.

And then Sam realized he hadn't moved an inch from his position in all this time. He remembered, from the very muted, vague and subconscious observation that he hadn't yet connected the dots with until now, that he had come back to the exact same sight of his brother that he left the motel to, and never saw any change in him the entire duration since his return.

He slid out of his chair and walked over to him. Dean's chest was rising and falling just fine, his breathing regular and normal. There was no change in the pallor of his skin. He didn't seem to be in any sort of pain or discomfort. Sam knelt down and touched his forehead. Optimal temperature. He placed his palm against the side of his neck and felt his pulse, thumb brushing back and forth as gently as feathers. Steady and strong. It was a testimony to the fact that something was really wrong here that Dean didn't even stir all throughout this checking process, let alone twist his wrist behind his back and put the knife under his pillow against his throat. Dean was a light sleeper with the quickest instincts Sam had ever known, better than his own, possibly even better than their father's.

Yet, he remained motionless and in deep slumber today, completely oblivious to Sam's examining hands.

Something was  _extremely_  wrong here.

"Dean?" Sam mumbled. He grasped his shoulder and shook him lightly. Dean didn't react, not a single twitch in his body or a shift in his features at the motion. He hoped that this was just an unusual day in which Dean slept a bit too heavily and soundly (which he supposed his brother needed these days), and he just needed to put in more effort (even if the inexplicable bad feeling in his gut indicated otherwise). He tried again. "Dean." He shook him harder. Dean only moved along with the jerky movements, limp as a ragdoll, but there was no willing movement of his own.

His hands withdrew momentarily. His stomach clenched painfully as the bad feeling deepened in its pit. He blinked, frowning. He grabbed both of Dean's shoulders and shook him, "Dean!"

Still no reaction. He touched Dean's neck in order to reassure himself that his brother's alive once more, that his heart rate is normal. He swallowed hard, his own heart rate speeding up to a hammering in his chest. His lungs felt tight and his throat felt choked, his palms sweaty. He couldn't understand what the hell was happening, couldn't think of a reason why Dean was in this comatose state. He wasn't hurt, hadn't had any sort of head injury for a long while. His vitals were optimal and completely normal. There was no sign of unwellness or sickness, of any physical issue.

Supernaturally induced?

They haven't been dealing with any djinns lately, and they were the only creatures they've heard of that had the ability to do something like this. There hadn't been any signs of one in this town, at least. So if not that...

Was it angels?

Could they do that? Did it have something to do with them forcing Dean into giving Michael his consent to take over his body? Into letting him become what Dean called his 'meatsuit'?

What was the point of it? What was this meant to do and how was it supposed to help them convince Dean into doing what they wanted?

He raised himself to sit beside Dean's prone form on the bed, hands shaking as they balled up the sheets tightly.

Where would he even  _start_  with fixing this?

This wasn't a very familiar predicament to them. They've never dealt with angelically-induced comas before, if that was even what it was.

He felt the same nauseating worry and fear overcome him, rippling through his body. He leaned over and snatched his phone off the night table, pressed speed dial two with the thumb of his other hand and lifted the phone to his ear. It rang thrice before it was answered, the familiar gruff voice too much of a relief to hear. It eased the tightness in his chest just the slightest bit.

"Sam..."

Sam swallowed. "Bobby…"

" _What'd you boys get into this time_?"* Bobby asked with a knowing sigh.

Sam almost smiled, the barest flicker of one, at how well Bobby could read him from a single word. He glanced down at his hands, inhaling tremulously. "Dean… he's…"

It seemed to take him a bit too long to be able to continue, to be able to think through the foggy haze of his panic and anxiety and gather the words. " _What's goin' on, son? Spit it out_."*

His breaths were coming out slightly heavy and short. "He's not...waking up, even though everything's fine with him. I don't know when it started or why it's happening or what's doing it to him. I-I think it might be angels b-but I'm not sure. I don't know what it's doing to him and I don't know how to make it stop and I just-" The fear began to make his voice tremble and crack, couldn't keep it as steady as he was trying to and he stopped, taking a deep breath. His vision blurred slightly and he blinked. "I don't know what to do, Bobby…" He sounded like a lost and scared little boy, and as much as he hated it, he felt like one in that moment, his big brother too sick and shaky and pale from fevers, his hand clutching Dean's tightly and his eyes burning and big as he asked his father in a whisper, "Is De'n gonna be okay?"

" _It's alright, boy. We'll fix him up. You just get him here, okay_?"

Sam blinked to clear his sight, nodding once, twice. "Ye-yeah...okay, Bobby. Thanks."

" _Don't mention it. Now you get both your asses here quick_."

A small smile tilted the corners of Sam's mouth, the aching terror in his chest dissipating slightly.

He hung up the phone and glanced down at Dean, at his smoothed-out, peaceful face. He looked like he was sleeping, but it reminded him too much of when he was dead (after Sam slid his eyes shut and cleaned off all the blood from his body and stitched him up carefully as if it would matter and changed his clothes), so still and unreactive. Dean was always moving, always restless, awake or asleep (especially these days). It didn't look right at all for him to be so unmoving, so lifeless.

He wrapped his lanky fingers around Dean's wrist and let the throb of his pulse ground him into reality.

"I'm here," Sam whispered to him in the silence of the room, soft and comforting even as his chest felt too small and tight for his heart. "I'll make you okay again, you hear me?"

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Fuck.

That was the first thought that filtered into Dean's throbbing brain, which felt like it was squeezing against the walls of his cranium. He groaned loudly, hands reaching up to clutch at his head as he curled up on the hard mattress. The blaring sunlight through the motel windows made him see orange behind his eyelids. The waves of nausea rippled from his stomach to his throat. When he swallowed down the dryness, it felt like forcing down prickling needles. He coughed slightly at the sensation, slowly dragged himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, heels of his palms pushing into his temples.

This was usually the moment Sam came in with a styrofoam cup of coffee, handing it over to him silently. It had become a part of his routine, as had drinking nocturnally until he was past consciousness so that the numbness and darkness would set in lieu of everything else, of the deadness and the constant dull, rotting ache inside of him. He had come to depend on both these things in consecutive sequence. It was another one of Sam's little ways to compensate and ease his guilt, taking up the responsibility to get all the meals throughout the day. Dean couldn't say it helped much. The kinds of things Sam had done were hard to make up for.

Sometimes he wasn't sure how—if— he'd ever forgive him, and above all, trust him. He had tried. He really had.

But he had come back from hell, the hell that he went to and suffered for forty years in, for and to a brother that had become everything Dean didn't want him to. To Sam addicted on the vilest substance Dean could name and fucking rolling around in beds with the same species of a monster that killed their mother, the  _love_  of his life. Dean had warned him time and time again, and he kept choosing  _her_ , just never fucking listened to him because...because what? Because he thought that his return from Hell made him weak and broken and scared and not capable of faith anymore like he had said under the Siren's influence?

In the hotel room, he had given him the ultimatum, him or her, and Sam had let him know exactly who he chose by wrapping his hands around his throat and almost strangling him to death.

And then walking out on him as he laid bloodied and bruised on that floor.

It ended with him jumpstarting armageddon.

Because Sam went through with it with that bitch Ruby, even after him pouring his fucking heart out in that voicemail. He went in after Sam into the convent after a verbal ass-whooping by Bobby, but he was too late (not late enough to stab Ruby in the chest). But at the end of it all, there was no question that he had lost any hope for the two of them, that they could ever get back from it all to where they used to be.

"Sam?" Dean grumbled. He bent over, groaning as his stomach lurched and the ache in his head increased tenfold, pain shooting through his eyeballs as he squeezed them shut once more.

There was no response besides a light rustle from in front of him.

His blinked hard again, vision blurring, his jaw clenched against the discomfort, and then he slowly forced them open.

His gaze landed on Sam.

And he froze.

The sudden jolt of cold horror in his chest sobered him up completely, eyes widening beneath pinched brows at the sight in front of him. His gut twisted again, aggravating his hangover sickness a notch.

"What the hell…" Dean growled, his widened eyes roving up and down quickly over his brother's frame. "What the hell…"

Sam was…

There were livid bruises on his face, painfully dark and varying in colors. Puffy left eye, split mouth, purple-blue jaw and cut, reddened cheeks. There were finger-shaped bruises and small cuts on his arms, on his torso through his shirt. Thick, dried up blood matted up in his hair, some trailing down from his nose and smeared across his lips. Another thin trickle continued from there down his chin. Strangulation marks curved around his neck. There were streaks of brown on walls, on the carpet, on Sam's bedsheets and his plain white t-shirt, which was ripped in multiple places. The room was a mess, chairs upturned, the small table's legs snapped off as it laid flat, all the items from desks and tables crashed to pieces on the floor. Shards of glass scattered all over, some of them stained with blood. Fuck.

His right hand was chained to the bed-frame, wrist chafed red raw, pieces of skin sticking out and blisters oozing beads of blood.

"D-ean…?" Sam rasped, and...fuck, he sounded afraid, his voice trembling. It fucking hurt, broke his heart in a way he didn't think possible after everything, after the shitty year they've had. The familiar decades-old rush of a strong, furious protectiveness and worry cut through the deadness in him, and it would have been surprising in any other circumstances.

What the hell happened?

The guilt struck into his chest and left him momentarily breathless, pushed down on him like a boulder as the splatters of blood in the motel room made him realize, whatever had happened had happened right here, right in front of him while he was passed out from too much whiskey on his bed. Somebody, humans judging by the intact salt lines, broke in and did this to his brother. He didn't remember much from last night, so he didn't know who and how many people (probably more than a handful because Sam was a hard guy to take down) he pissed off enough for them to go after his brother.

If he got his hands on those bastards, he'd fucking kill them.

Nobody put that fear in his brother's voice and that big, round-eyed look on his face and got away with it.

All the shit that happened the past year didn't change that sentiment, it seemed.

"I-I'm s-sorry about last night," Sam blurted out, nervous and quivering, free hand gripping his sheets tightly as he quickly rooted his gaze to it. "It wasn't my place, I know. I-I won't do it again, Dean."

Dean's brows pinched in confusion. What?

"Do… do what, Sam?" There was no context to Sam's words, none that he could remember, at least. Something was nagging at Dean in the back of his mind, the pit of his gut. There was something very fucking wrong with this situation, but he pushed it back and tried to focus on the matter at hand.

Sam didn't provide any further explanation. Dean pushed to his feet, intending to cross the three feet distance between their beds and examine the damage more thoroughly. He had a lot of questions, but his brother seemed too shaken up to be ready for them. Whatever had happened last night, the damage those sons of bitches (that were soon to be very fucking dead) caused, had to be  _bad_. Bad enough to have put that tremor in his voice and the submissive hunch in Sam's shoulders. Sam. Second most badass hunter on the planet next to him and one of the toughest bastards he knew.

His baby brother that nobody got to fuck with without losing something vital.

When Dean stood up, Sam's eyes snapped up to him alertly, as if he had been keeping him in his peripheral vision, face draining of color. He shifted tensely on the bed, as if ready to bolt at any fast movement (probably would have if it hadn't been for the handcuffs).

And then it hit him in that moment.

That Sam was looking at  _him_  with that terror in those puppy-dog eyes of his.

That Sam was scared of him.

He didn't… he couldn't have. Nah.

There was no fucking way.

"Sam…"

As if in some desperate attempt to prove it to himself that it wasn't what he thought it was, he found himself moving too fast, striding towards Sam.

Only to jolt to a halt half-way through as Sam scrambled back into the wall behind him, shoving himself against it as tightly as he could, eyes large as his shoulders and hands shook, twisting the sheets. His chained wrist was stretching towards himself as far as it would go, and it appeared painful and uncomfortable as fuck. He squirmed slightly, gulping down what looked like a whole load of fear.

He was looking at  _Dean_.

Like he was the one that did it to him.

Dean felt the sickness come back, ten times stronger. He swallowed hard, stumbled the rest of the couple of steps towards his little brother.

"I-I… wai-wait, please," Sam choked out tremulously as he kept moving, and something inside of Dean died at his begging words (what the fuck happened, goddamnit?!). His hand jerked against the handcuffs, some desperate, frantic, hopeless attempt to escape. His darting, anxious glances bounced between him and the exit door.

"Sam, I…" Dean trailed off, throat tight. He reached the edge of the bed, nearly staggering to drop on it as he grabbed at Sam's recoiling arms. "I didn't…"

He wanted to say, _I didn't do this to you._

He wanted it to be true.

He wanted it to be nothing more than some horrible, twisted misunderstanding somehow.

He didn't want his hands to be the one that did this.

But he was trying to remember what happened last night and he couldn't. He was searching for a proof somewhere that he wasn't the one responsible for those ugly wounds and the blood on his brother, but all he had was Sam looking at him with purple-colored eyes like he was waiting for him to start swinging his fists into him again. He caught sight of his knuckles, curled around Sam's biceps, and they were darkened too with collisions of bone against bone and flesh, phantasmical throbs of pain from memories he didn't remember.

"Sam, it's… it's fine. Everything's fine," Dean whispered to him, didn't quite know what he was offering the absolution that wasn't even his to give for. He watched his cowering baby brother, shaking, bruised arms raised up over his face protectively. When the pain and shame and guilt shoving in and in and in between his ribs got too much, Dean squeezed his eyes and tried to breathe through the overwhelming bouts of them.

"You… you won't hurt… me?" he asked, sounded too heartbreakingly young and fragile in that moment.

Dean let go of him, backing away. His head still hurt, but the damn pain and sorrow pressing into his airless chest was really what was at the forefront of his attention. "No, bud," he said softly, tried to push down the burn in his throat. "You're safe. You're okay."

It didn't help his lungs when he saw Sam's startled expression shift to a bewildered and wary stare.

**…**

While Sam showered, muffled taps of water droplets hitting the bathtub from behind the door, Dean sat on the bed, begged his (still aching) brain to regain its memories of last night (as much as he dreaded to really remember).

Nothing came.

His mind remained blank, besides a bad feeling and an image in the back of his mind that he couldn't catch. The only thing he knew was that it had to do with last night, that it was of Sam. The burn of frustration in him grew the longer it stayed unclear and out of his reach.

The images of Sam's physical state filtered into his brain once again. All the blood, the wounds, the gut-wrenching terror making his face look as young as he used to be, his small, scrawny body curling up in Dean's arms under the roars of thunderstorms outside their motel rooms. His chest clenched too tight and he closed his eyes, hanging his head, breathing heavily. He ran a hand down his mouth, rubbing at his chin.

The amount of damage he had done on his brother, all of it, in one night…

Hell, the fact that he even hurt him at all in the first place...

What did this mean?

Did it mean...

The same darkness that had plagued inside of him when he broke down from all the torture and agony and tore apart a screaming, weeping soul… was it returning?

Was he slowly becoming that same violent monster again somehow, starting with him hurting his own baby brother? Did he only become one when he couldn't think and control what he was doing?

Why was it happening now?

It had hung over his head for a long while after he had dug out of his own grave, that something might come along and set him off and he'd become Alistair's demented, brutal and bloodlusting little string-puppet again, mindless and insane in his rage and grief. He had been afraid of himself for a long time, lying awake at 2am nights, staring at plain cracked ceilings as he re-lived his own suffering and the sufferings caused at his bloodied, filthy hands on them, wondering if he'd someday lash out in a way he couldn't ever come back from, break something that couldn't ever be fixed. The guilt and shame and sorrow was a constant weight in the back of his mind, on his chest.

Always wondering if he could ever be trusted wholly anymore.

The bathroom door clicked open and Sam walked out, towel wrapped around his waist. Dean raised his gaze and saw his brother's sickening, abused half-bare body and wondered if the answer had always been so clearly never. Not after the things he'd done.

Who was to say he wasn't capable of doing that to Sam after all of it?

Before he could completely begin to drown in his disgust and shame towards himself, however, he noticed something.

The wounds on Sammy's body, back and torso, shoulders to waist… many of them were half-healed or only recently scarred. Large bruises were fading away in varying degrees. They were weeks old at most, some older than others, and he was a hundred percent certain that they were never there yesterday, nor the last time he'd patched Sam up, a nasty slash on his side a month ago from a werewolf they had hunted in Miami. Bastard had got a pretty good shot at him, and it needed about eight stitches to close it up. Sam's skin was mostly unscathed, besides a few bad scars here and there. He knew every one of them.

None of that was there yesterday when Sam came out of the shower either.

He didn't want to know what caused most of them, because they didn't look like something that could only be done by bare hands.

On top of that, Sammy was  _thin_.

Ribs and collarbones and hip bones and spine sticking out in a way it hadn't yesterday. Sam's cheekbones were a little more prominent, sunken into his face along with his darkened, fatigued eyes, arms and legs slimmer. Last night, Sammy was still as fit and athletic as his working out hours and his gross rabbit food made him.

Now he looked...smaller. Bonier. Weaker. His muscle mass was reduced quite considerably, like he hadn't been eating right or exercising for a while, and he walked slower, shoulders slumped like he didn't have enough energy to keep himself upright.

That sure as fuck didn't happen overnight.

Sam became aware of his observant stare after a quick dart of a glance towards him before abruptly flitting away. It seemed that he mistook it for anger instead, because he was suddenly trembling again, as hard as he was trying to control it by clenching his fists against the desk where his duffel bag was placed. His body language was tense and cautious, head bowed down as he presumably tried to calm himself.

Sam's behavior, including his reaction earlier, were of an indication that this had happened more than once.

As far as he knew, it hadn't.

He ruffled through his bag for clothes, hands still quivering but trying so very hard not to seem frantic. Dean finally managed broke his stare away from his injured and beaten body, not wanting to make him any more uncomfortable than he already had just now.

So what the fuck was going on?

He needed coffee before he could think through that, and he needed the damn painkillers to kick in already.

**…**

After dressing and coming out of the bathroom, Sam slipped over to where his jacket was draped on the back of a chair. He pulled his wallet out of the pocket, opened it and flipped through the notes. There were very few of them.

Sam's expression morphed into one of troubled, face crestfallen at, possibly, the shortage of money.

Dean was often the breadwinner, being the better pool hustler of the two. Not that Sam was exactly bad. But the kid had a lot less practice and a lot of moral objections against it, cheating dumb big dudes out of their money through the faćade of a drunken, reckless and young idiotic man. Dean didn't really get why he was so against it, considering their entire life was an illegal crime. It was dishonest, but it was just survival.

The money earned was always split equally, albeit Sam's guilty look as he accepted it. Right now, he'd be willing to bet he himself had ten times the amount Sam did.

"Hey, Dean?" Sam asked, his voice small and hesitant.

Dean's gaze turned to him. It was pretty damn hard to remember why he had been so pissed the past two months when he looked and sounded like that, the effect of those damn eyes only enhanced by the loss of weight and his harrowing facial wounds. "Yeah, Sammy?"

There was a flash of an emotion that Dean could only tie with the nickname.

Sam glanced at his nearly empty wallet, mouth opening slightly, working to get the words out. "I…"

Dean stood up and walked over to his own jacket before he could start, understanding immediately what he wanted to ask for. Sam's head raised, following him.

"I… I didn't waste it," he explained hastily, quite unnecessarily too. Money was bound to run out eventually, but for some reason, he sounded like he was expecting to be blamed or doubted of something for it. Dean picked up the black overgarment from the other chair. "I-I spent it all on whatever you wanted me to…"

"Really not a big deal, Sammy. Don't worry about it," Dean waved it off, finding the lump of wallet in his pocket. This was yet another sign that something wasn't right, that something had changed here (he'd bet his soul again that it had something to do with those fucking winged douchebags up in the sky). He was pretty sure he had never restricted Sam from spending any amount of money. Not like he ever had to anyway when Sam was already too careful and frugal about how much he used their finances. He never did anything regarding this to make Sam sound like that.

He handed his brother half the money in his wallet, two hundred and twelve dollars out of four hundred and twenty four. Sam stared at him, looked for all the world confused. "Why…"

Dean shrugged. "It's yours. It's what we've always done, right?"

Sam didn't say anything for a moment. Then, he did, "I-It's fine. I don't want it." He held it out to him again. There was a sort of a weary knowing hanging in his eyes. Except, Dean had no idea what he thought he knew.

His brows scrunched up. "Why?"

"I know what I don't deserve." He smiled sadly. He sounded like he was parroting something from a memory.

Dean didn't know if he wanted to know.

**...**

Fortunately, Sam gave in and took the money after some insistence. Unfortunately, it wasn't out of acceptance, but probably fear of consequences if he argued too much. Dean didn't really get what was going on there, but well, he supposed he'd be better off not knowing or else he just might break something.

He didn't let Sammy get them breakfast when he went to the door, not with the way he subtly grimaced in pain every step he walked. Honestly, what kind of a dickless bastard…

Apparently, the him of this world.

That was the conclusion he had reached, which seemed to be the only one that made any sense. It was… a lot, even with what they already dealt with on a daily basis, but certainly not out of the ballpark of possibilities. It also worked with his belief that this had something to do with those dicks with wings, since they seemed to be the only creatures with that sort of power.

This wasn't his world. It just couldn't be. Things didn't fit here, too many inconsistencies and dissimilarities, some subtle, out of nowhere from what he had known yesterday in his own world.

The least subtle being that he had abused his own baby brother.

He had checked the date, which followed the one he had known as yesterday's, so there was no lost time. He hadn't been possessed or controlled.

The indications behind Sam's behavior regarding the duration of this horrible situation. Sam's battered body not being the same as it was yesterday. There were bruises on his own fists, but the drunken, hazy memories he finally recalled didn't match. He had said some shitty things to his brother due to zero filter on his mouth, by courtesy of nearly a whole bottle of cheap, shit whiskey, but he hadn't laid a goddamn finger on him before he dropped on that bed.

" _G-get… get offa me 'fore I sock you in the face_."

That felt like shit to think about now.

There was a sort of conflicted relief that loosened his ribs with that revelation. It wasn't him. Not really, right? It was some asshole variation of him in another universe. It wasn't his own actions, exactly, even if that douchebag was him. Or not really. The son of a bitch might have his face and his name, but he sure as hell wasn't Dean where it mattered.

He wasn't really turning into that demented, brutal, insane little string-puppet owned by Alistair again.

Dean swallowed, the lump of fear forming in his throat at the thought of it again, knuckles whitening around the curve of the steering wheel. He didn't ever want to become that.

Certainly never wanted to become that with his little brother around.

No matter what Sam had done the past year, no matter how bad it hurt him, Dean couldn't bear the thought of anyone hurting his brother, let alone himself.

On the other hand, however, the relief was mingling with a different kind of compunction; for even feeling the relief itself. It didn't feel like something he should be relieved about when someone had still hurt his brother so brutally. In all honesty though, even the secondhand shame still remained, despite his understanding that it wasn't him at all that did those heinous things.

"Fleetwood Diner," he read out loud as he pulled the car to a stop. "That looks...somewhat decent. What d'you think, Sammy?"

Sam flickered a glance at him, and then gave a small, jerky nod.

There was a lot of tension between them these days, this time due to an entirely different reason, however. Even so, the things that had happened, the impact of it all, was still there. He just felt a lot more compelled to keep it on hold for now, unless he was alright with acting pissed at his horribly abused kid brother, by a man of his own face no less, and feeling like the piece of shit that it would totally make him for doing that.

From what he figured based on certain observations, things had gone quite similarly here as it had in his own Earth. There was a time when the him of this world had loved Sammy, judging by the scar he remembered was still in the centre of Sam's back when he came out of the shower. This Dean must have sold his soul for Sam too, gone to hell and back for him (unless he was brought back by some other means somehow but it was better to set that aside for now).

So what was different here that led to him becoming this?

Did he come back from Hell a more changed person than he himself had? Perhaps into something worse than just feeling a constant sense of an emptiness, like everything had been ripped out of him, of a weariness beyond his years and a soul older than he really was and the unspeakable remorse of his bloodshed down there.

How long had it all been going on?

Hell, was this even a real fucking world where he dropped off the face of his own planet onto here? Or was he in some weird comatose state out there right now where he was having this vivid, realistically-detailed, fucked up dream? He had considered stabbing himself in the gut to wake himself up if it had been the latter, but he had no idea if he'd actually die or not. He couldn't risk it.

Was his own Sammy okay?

Dean hoped to god he was. Probably just worried out of his mind.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mentions/hints of past abuse

Real Universe

"What do you think is wrong with him?" Sam asked.

"No idea," Bobby answered. He had gone through the same procedure of checking Dean's vitals, perhaps to reassure himself too. Now he sat back in his wheelchair, opposite to Sam, watching his surrogate elder son thoughtfully.

"You think angels have something to do with this?"

"Seems the most plausible." He shrugged.

Sam nodded. He glanced down at Dean, features smoothed out into an unusual sort of peace for him. It was still unnerving, yet something he wished he could see often on him. "I'll give Cas a call. Maybe he could fill us in if he knows something."

"Yeah," Bobby agreed. He put his hands to his wheels and rolled back. "In the meantime, I'll see if I can find something to wake him up."

"Thanks, Bobby," Sam said sincerely, a soft, grateful smile gracing his lips.

"That's what I'm here for, boy," Bobby responded, smiling back fondly. He then waved it off with, "You two idjits need someone to pull you out of all the crap you get yourselves into."

Sam chuckled. "Fair enough."

Bobby left the library with the sound of wheels shifting against wood, followed by the thud of a closing door. Sam moved his hand up tentatively towards his brother's. Dean didn't like him touching him much these days, kept retreating every part of himself he tried to reach for. He understood it, didn't blame him for it in the least. He knew he should probably respect Dean's aversion. It was the least he owed to him, the least he could do.

But he looked too close to dead right now, and Sam had already seen what that looked like. More than a hundred times, actually, after the Mystery Spot, where the trickster forced him to re-live the unspeakable grief and agony and loss of his brother over and over and over. Every detail was burned into his mind; the hollow eyes staring beyond the world, and the way he looked serene and undisturbed when he closed them, as if merely asleep, without a line of sadness or worry. He had lost his mind and his heart and his conscience in his mourn when his brother died for the last time and didn't wake up, shot by a mugger of all things when he couldn't be there to watch his back. He spent six months chasing down Loki, risked Bobby's life too, at his own hands no less, in lieu of getting his big brother back.

When the real thing came, he wasn't prepared at all.

When the real thing came, it came with a horrific, shredded, devastating image of the finality that he couldn't bear to accept. There was no trickster he could beg to, no soul that anyone would take. Nothing.

Nothing except kill the monster that took his big brother from him, except force her to bring him back somehow.

His lanky fingers wrapped around Dean's wrist slowly, his brother's pulse a steady thumping against his palm. It was a constant reassurance of his aliveness, and it grounded him against his fear and anxiety. Whatever this was, it could be fixed as long as there was life in Dean's body.

…

Alternate Universe

Before he started the apocalypse and Ruby and demon blood and hell and their deaths, he remembered a time when Dean had loved him endlessly and unconditionally, and when Sam had always known that without a doubt. That was why it didn't matter to him that they didn't say those things to each other, because they never had to. Everything Dean did, everything he had ever done, was enough for him to simply know.

Ever since he had grown into a moody, independence-craving teenager, he had tried to obtain as much space as he could from Dean and his obsessive, mother-henning antics. It used to get to the point of being smothering at times, and particularly in his hormonal-fueled years, he began to resent it. He had still loved his brother more than anything he'd ever loved, but he lashed out often and perhaps hurt him too much by doing so. As an adult, he had grown more tolerant, more mature and in control of his emotions, but still stood his ground on wanting to be treated like an adult.

Dean had been the one to pretty much raise him at the expense of his own childhood and happiness. Sam had forgotten that sometimes and taken many of the little things he was given by him for granted. It was human nature to stop becoming aware and appreciative of everything you've already had and kept having and believed that you'd never stop having. There was always the solace and assurance that his brother's love and care would forever be with him.

How wrong he was.

How that had changed.

And it was all his fault that it did. It was all the result of the choosing everything he never should have chosen over the one person that had always tried to do right by him.

Now he was reaping what he sowed.

Now he was black and blue, wounded from head to toe. Now he was collecting more scars in these past months at Dean's fists and belts than he had his entire life in his line of work. Now he couldn't remember the last time Dean hadn't glared at him like he was one of the evil creatures they hunted, one of the worst kind he had ever known at that. Loathing and disgust and fury all ablaze in his spring green eyes that he had only ever reserved for them.

For monsters like Azazel and Lilith and Alistair.

Dean had tried his hardest after he came back. He had tried to help him, more concentrated on his drug addiction issues and the questionable path he was heading down than his own horrendous trauma and the darkness he was struggling with inside. Whatever Hell had changed in him, the sombreness and rage and anguish in him, he had tried to put a lid on it and go back to what he used to be before it all.

But sometimes the hateful, sneering words came out, and his fists flew around in his uncontrollable anger, and Sam's giant ego, overblown even more so by the effects of the toxic poison he kept swallowing down, couldn't take it back then. He went further and further away, committed even worse deeds in his belief that the ends would justify the means. He was taken in by Ruby's tireless insistence and persuasion that in the end, things would work out, and Dean would see that, see him as the person he wanted him to be proud of. So, in his painful desperation, he continued, regardless of what it took from him and where it did, in order to prove to his brother that he was right, that Dean was wrong.

In the end, it had been the contrary all along.

Dean had always been right. He always was.

 _And he still is_ , Sam thought. He deserved what he was getting. Every bit of it. After what he'd done, he should have been killed. The fact that he was still here at all, still breathing, was a mercy, a luxury.

Dean needed it. The things he had suffered (because of Sam himself, no less) and the things Sam had done to him after he returned… this was a small price to pay on his part.

And Dean had tried so hard before he forced him to break. He saw it every day but he never understood how much strength it had taken.

He supposed that the little brother that he had given everything for (right down to his soul) setting the devil loose on Earth was the last straw, and Dean just stopped fighting whatever Hell had left inside of him.

**...**

This had happened before once.

Dean acting like he used to before all the bad things happened, before Sam screwed it up by making all the wrong choices.

He spoke to him and looked at him in a way that wasn't hard and cold, called him Sammy in this soft voice that only made Sam hurt. He held his wrists below the burns and opened his chains himself with the gentlest hands, when he'd usually throw the key at him and get irritable when he struggled shakily, trying to be as quick as possible and only taking that much more time. He let him have the first shower and the hot water that he tried to use as scarcely as possible. He didn't get angry at him for running out of money so fast, didn't ask him questions distrustfully and make him account for everything he spent it on. In fact, he even gave him half the money out of his wallet. He tried to refuse most of it, because he already knew, but Dean didn't let him and he didn't want to set him off by opposing him too much.

The last time, it was comparatively a lot less in-depth, yet he fell for it like the idiot he was, not stopping once to consider and analyze the possible reasons behind it simply because he wanted it so bad to be real, for it to perhaps be some sort of a beginning to an improvement in Dean's emotional state and his predicament, well-deserved as it was.

For Dean to warm up to him and maybe, someday, even see the brother he loved once more whenever he looked at him. Not the repulsive, inherently evil, bloodsucking freak he now thought him to be, that he had always been fated to be.

The last time, he could see Dean was angry and annoyed, but he was trying so very hard to remain in control. He let him have first shower and told him to get out in ten minutes tops. He let him have more for meals than the usual monetary limit of under six dollars. He didn't call him names or hit him once. He talked to him about things that weren't related to work, that weren't sarcastic quips and mocking jabs at his past sins. He did little things throughout the day that Sam, perhaps, got a bit too hopeful about.

The entire week, he fell asleep every night with a lighter heart and the foolish hope that maybe things would get better soon. He tried his best to keep things the way they were, did everything he could to do better so that they would stay like this. He was happier than he'd been in an exhaustingly long time, exhausting not due to the length of the passage of time itself, but for the hollowness, the sorrow, the excruciating agony of every kind that seemed to weigh down on every moment of his days, time dragging on and on and on to the point of fatigue like a broken-legged man across an endless quick-sand.

It was laughably pathetic now that he looked back on it.

The test, or the game, had ended with him curled up helplessly on the ground, knees to his chest protectively, too much blood gathering in his mouth until it was leaking past his split lips, until he was choking on it and coughing it out, everything burning and hurting and hurting worse with every pull at his battered muscles. His brother's taunting words, mingling with his mirthless laughter, repeating in his throbbing, ringing head like a broken record, " _Man, I tried. I really tried. But playing nice is hard when it's to a goddamn fuck-up like you."_

_"What, did you start dreaming about us riding off into the sunset together?"_

_"God, you're one pathetic son of a bitch, you know that?"_

_"You really don't seem to know what you don't deserve, do you?"_

Monsters didn't deserve anything good.

**…**

"Blackest coffee you got, BLT with swiss cheese and grilled onions, a plate of sausages, and three pancakes with powdered sugar and blueberries," Dean listed. The waitress in her mid-forties, name-tagged Dorothy, wrote down everything as he went on on her small notepad. Sam had thought she looked a little like their mother, blonde hair and narrow, long face and eyes as light as hers. She then turned to Sam, except he was still searching for items on the menu that would keep him under his monetary restrictions. Dean had called her over, but he supposed it wasn't too soon because he was the one taking too long here.

He didn't want to bother the waitress and make her wait too long, but everything he usually ate, as always, was going over his limit. The coffee was two dollars, and he couldn't forgo that because most of the energy he needed to function came from that. Everything he could remotely stand costed at least five. His appetite has grown too small over the months as it was, foods that he once enjoyed tasting like ashes, but he had to take what he could get when he could, and there weren't a lot of things anymore that he could swallow down and keep down. "Ma'am… I just... could you give me a minute, please?' he said, and hated how his voice took on a frantic, pleading tone. Dean was probably getting exasperated right about now, and it was hanging over his head and making him tense.

"It's no trouble, darling," Dorothy said kindly, smiling at him. "Take your time."

Sam swallowed, quickly glancing up at Dean, who was staring at him, but returned his gaze back to the menu before he could read his look. He didn't have to. It was either taking even more time and irritating him even more or going one dollar over his limit. Either way, he was about to get a backhand.

"A-actually, just coffee's fine. Thank you," Sam said, trying to smile politely at her. He hoped it didn't look like some constipated, rigid grimace instead.

"You sure, honey?" she asked, frowning.

Sam nodded.

"Sam?" Dean chimed in. "Come on, man. What are you, on a diet? Get yourself something to eat. You're making me look bad here after all the crap I ordered."

"I-I don't feel like eating."

"Order something anyway," he pressed. "Look at yourself, Sam. You don't take care of yourself at all. People are gonna think I steal all your food too and leave you to starve or something."

Sam swallowed, shaking his head. "I-it's fine. Just coffee please, ma'am."

The waitress smiled down at him, and he hoped he was wrong, but there was a tinge of sadness to it. "Alright, sweetheart. Whatever you say."

"If you could add the two eggs, hashbrown and toast deal and your raisin french toast to our orders, that'd be great," Dean said, shooting her a tight, polite smile.

"Sure thing," Dorothy replied. She scritch-scratched it down on her notepad and then glanced at them both. "Anything else?"

Dean looked at Sam, but he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do now. He didn't want to keep bugging Dorothy and keep her here, who probably had a lot of other customers to attend to. Arguing too much could rile his brother up, but so would not playing the game right. He was damned either way.

The guilt welled up in his chest for all the money spent on someone so worthless, but he settled for causing less trouble to someone at least, and didn't say anything.

Dorothy patted his shoulder, and he looked up at her, greeted with the softest and kindest smile he'd probably ever seen for him on anyone besides Dean, once. He didn't really understand what it was for, but he tried to reciprocate it anyway, except he probably only gave her some semblance of one, small and flickering. It felt strange and imposturous on his cheeks.

After she left, Dean cleared his throat to get his attention. Sam was sure he was about to receive a jeer, most likely underhanded and concealed with something ordinary under the pose of the game.

Dean raised an eyebrow with a teasing smile, commenting, "What's it about you that all the older women want to like, cover you in bubble wrap and fatten you with cookies?"

For a moment, he searched for the hidden insult in those words, but the only thing off about it was that it sounded forced, and he was sure it was. The harmless teasing and the glint of innocent, unshaded humor in his eye were things that didn't happen anymore. He supposed Dean was going to new lengths now to keep up the act, and he would have believed it if he didn't know better. It would be a lot more fun that way when he did break him down at the end.

"What do you want from me?" Sam asked him, soft and defeated and tired, looking him in the eye. As soon as it came out, he regretted it, because he had no idea how Dean would react towards his bluntness.

Dean stared at him blankly, like he had no idea what he meant. "I don't want… what the hell are you talking about?"

Sam flinched, his chest jolting. He broke the eye contact to stare down at the table. "I just… I don't know what I'm supposed to…"

He shot a quick glance up. Dean's face remained blank.

"I-I know what you're doing," Sam blurted, forcing himself to plow through. He swallowed down his racing heart, his body hot and tense, his palms growing clammy and sweaty. He tightened his tangled fingers together. "I know you're d-doing it again. And I don't… I don't know what you want me to do."

Dean leaned forward, elbows on the table as his hands clasped together, as if he was about to tell him something important. "Sam, listen…" he began, mouth opening slightly, before closing it back up, as if he didn't know how to say it. Sam found it quite an odd sight, because he hadn't seen his brother look so unsure in a long while about anything. He breathed, shutting his eyes, and then tried again. "I…"

But whatever he was about to say was interrupted by his phone ringing. He leaned back, reaching into his jeans for his phone and tugging it out. He looked at the screen, frowning. "It's… Cas."

Sam's gaze was rooted to his wrung hands on the table.

"I'll be back."

Dean stood up and walked towards the exit of the diner.

**…**

Sam startled slightly when he felt a weight drop on his shoulder. He lifted his head and was met with Dorothy's tender eyes and smile.

She crouched down, both hands now settled on his shoulders. "I don't have a lot of time to beat around the bush, dear, so I'm gonna say it straight. I saw the bruises on your partner's hands, and it ain't no coincidence that your neck has finger-shaped marks too."

He couldn't think for a couple of seconds, staring down at the petite, thin, maternal woman kneeling in front of him. This had never happened before. At least, not in this way. He used to feel self-conscious about his appearance before, but after a while, he stopped noticing when he had the liberating realization that not many others did either, or if they did, they mostly minded their own business or plainly couldn't care less and so didn't bring it up. There were exceptions; unkind, snide jibes from some people of the younger age groups, shopkeepers and clerks, either concerned or merely curious and indifferent, asking questions just to make conversation. He had given them all an answer that was now well-practiced at this point.

He gave her the same one. "I...I think you're mistaken, ma'am." He breathed out an incredulous laugh. "He's my brother. And he didn't do anything to me. I was kidnapped and beaten for a couple of days by some men with a grudge the size of their egoes," he snorted. "Dean….he came in and saved me. That's where the bruises on his hands came from."

"You look at him like you're worried he's going to explode if you even breathe wrong," she said, sad and quiet, her soft eyes seeing right through him like glass. "Takes one to know one, darling." Dorothy moved her hand down to take his, and paused momentarily when she caught sight of his shredded wrists. She went silent for a few seconds, as if she was composing herself. "I've been there, alright? I had an ex-husband who abused me."

Abused. That word, the meaning of it that painted a picture of someone innocent and undeserving of the anguish inflicted upon them. He was the furthest thing from any of that.

Dorothy thought she could relate to someone like him, and she was wrong.

He thought of his hands squeezing around his brother's throat on that hotel floor, the awful words he spat at him there and under the siren's influence before that, caused him too much pain at a time he was still suffering from the traumatic after-effects of being tortured unimaginably in the most horrific place ever known, the unforgivable betrayal he had committed of choosing a monster of the same species that have abraded their family their entire life over his flesh and blood brother, the one that had always loved him beyond sense and reason. He thought of all the people he had hurt and killed, for and because of his vile, disgusting addiction. All the people that were now doomed, that would die in a couple of weeks or months or years in the most gruesome manner, at the hands of a beast that he himself set loose.

"I'm truly sorry about what you went through, ma'am," Sam whispered, half-smiling down at her ruefully. "But it's not the same thing."

_You didn't deserve it._

**...**

She wrote down the number on her notepad like she knew it by heart, easy and effortless. She folded it up twice, took his larger, thinner palm in hers and placed it in the centre of it. She closed his fingers around it and covered it in both of her own.

"Just think about it, baby," she said, a sorrowful, tight-lipped smile crinkling her eyes. "It'll be scary as hell, but there are people who can help. If you decide to go through with it and you need a place to crash, I have my number on there too. My son's just moved out and my husband won't mind at all."

Sam glanced down at their hands. She untangled one to touch his face, rubbed her thumb over his cheekbone, and that kind of gentleness had been so rare these days that he almost leaned into it. Maybe he did, just the slightest bit, because she kind of looked like the picture in his father's wallet and her hands felt nice, but he didn't say a word, and she didn't say another. She let go of him, backing away just in time for Dean to come through the entrance door, bell ringing as he pushed it open.

She pulled herself to her feet, gave him one last half-smile, wan and thin, and mouthed, "Think about it."

And then she was gone.

And Dean was back, sliding into his booth across from him. Sam didn't dare meet his gaze. If he found out that anything out of place happened whilst he was there, the day wouldn't end too well.

"Everything okay, Sammy?" Dean questioned, his gaze tracking Dorothy before returning back to him.

Sam nodded in that jerky, tentative way that was sure to tell Dean that something was off.

Dean seemed to let him off the hook though, for whatever reason. Most likely to keep up the show. "She's really taken a liking to you, huh?" he scoffed, shaking his head. "Ever since you were a baby, man. Probably the kicked-puppy eyes or that dumb mop of yours. Gets all the older women gushing. At least you got  _some_  charm in that department of females."

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: one scene of abusive situation (italicized part/flashback).
> 
> This chapter's been up for a while on fanfic. I've just been so busy that I completely forgot to post it here, for which I apologize sincerely! I will post the next chapter soon, hopefully.

"Cas?" Dean said, holding the phone to his ear tightly against the sound of roaring vehicles and the chorus of talking people on the streets.

"Dean," Cas greeted from the other end.

"Do you have any idea what in the  _fuck_  is going on?"

There was a long silence. Whether it was one of confusion or contemplation, Dean couldn't tell.

It turned out to be the latter. "Something is different about you," Cas pointed out, his voice as gravelly and impassive as ever. Dean could imagine his bird-like, tilting head and the deep, puzzled frown on his perpetually constipated face.

"Yes.  _Exactly_."

"Your consciousness."

"Yeah. Yes... _that_." Dean nodded vigorously. Then, he paused. "...what?"

"You're not the same person."

"I'm...I'm not. I mean, I'm  _Dean_ , but I'm not the same guy… you know?"

"Yes. Do you know who brought you here?"

Dean shook his head. "No clue, man. I just woke up with a killer hangover and found my baby brother chained and looking like he was hit by a fucking truck in the other bed, and then acting like  _I_  was the one driving it." His voice was beginning to take on a hysterical edge to it. Before he could go into full freak-out mode, he took a heavy intake of air and then exhaled it tremulously. "Is this...I don't know. Like, real? This world where I'm this… this abusive douchebag?"

"It is. Your consciousness has merely been transferred from one body to another, namely the body of the person you are here in this universe."

Dean needed a long fucking minute to process that.

"Um...okay. What about the douchebag's...consciousness?"

"It is possibly preserved with the one responsible for this."

Dean nodded. "Right. Great. Let's hope he stays there. For like,  _ever_. But why the fuck am _I_ here?"

"Often, such things occur with the purpose of teaching someone a sort of lesson. That, or the doer merely finds their life to be monotonous and dull and wishes to gain excitement out of your predicament."

Dean paused, and then shook his head. "...you're telling me someone might be doing this for  _kicks_?"

"Possibly, if not to impart a moral."

"For fuck's sake," Dean gritted out. He wanted to put his fist through something. He threw an arm up. "Well? Any ideas on how I can get back to my world?"  _To my Sammy?_

"Either learn your lesson—"

"And what lesson is that?"

"I don't know. But whatever it is, you must learn it. Perhaps the perpetrator will return you to your world then. If there really is no purpose, then you must find your own way back."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Real helpful, Cas. Thanks."

"You're welcome." Good old Cas. Completely ignorant about human expressions, sarcasm in particular.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"I have an inquiry," Cas said, the slightest flicker of hesitance in his voice.

"Go ahead."

"Well... it seems that...I often have a… a strange sensation in my torsal area at times… and I was wondering what it meant." Hearing Cas stammer so unsurely was... weird, to say the least. But what the hell did that mean?

Dean felt the worry dip in his gut. "Strange? Like, 'dying' strange or what?"

"No. I have come to believe it is rather what you humans consider emotional." Castiel sounded thoroughly perplexed. "It is possibly concerning your brother and your ill-treatment of him."

"You mean the asshole version of me."

"Yes."

Dean snorted. "Cas. I think you're experiencing something called solicitude."

"I don't like it."

Dean glanced up at the wide expanse of the pale blue sky, half-smiling ruefully. "Yeah, bud. I know." He sighed. "Been feeling it a lot myself today."

**…**

They found a case a few towns over for what the attackings pointed to a shapeshifter.

A survivor, Fiona Clark, was claiming that her once loving husband had physically assaulted her and attempted to murder her with a knife. She escaped just barely by a scrape. The husband, Milo Clark, adamantly denied the accusation, driven to desperate, tearful pleas. He declared to the cops of his whereabouts, which was at the bar a few blocks down from where their apartment was after a long day at work, blowing off some steam. The alibi checked out thoroughly, but there was no rationalization for Fiona's statements nor the recent injuries she sustained on her body besides hypotheses with shaky foundations and no proof.

"The other three victims of similar cases were not as lucky," Sam explained, professional and focused (and the first and only time here that he sounded like the Sam he knew). He handed Dean the gruesome pictures of the various violent killings. "But the supposed suspects for each of their murders were all loved ones of the victims. All their alibis check out too."

The authorities were completely stumped at the random, unorganized, chaotic crimes occurring out of nowhere and for no reason. There seemed to be no motive and no order to them, and moreover, not a single explanation for any of it. The evidence measured up; fingerprints on the murder weapon, DNA found at the crime scene, witness sightings (it didn't go past their notice that the 'suspects' were too careless, as if  _wanting_  to be seen). However, there was also undeniable proof of the veracity of their alibis. CCTV surveillance footage, multiple reports by witnesses of their whereabouts etcetera.

They interviewed friends and families of the victims, investigated the houses and examined security footage (found the flare of silver eyes with the turn of the monster's head). Sam quickly discovered that the shapeshifter was attacking in a particular pattern, all at nighttime.

When Dean praised him with a, "Good job, Sammy," for catching that detail, in some (secondhand) guilt-ridden attempt to compensate for the pain his brother suffered, Sam looked at him like he had grown two heads, and then like he was trying not to look like he just got a free ticket to a Pear Jam (Pear _l_  Jam? Whatever that band was that Sammy was crazy about) concert.

Something always ached inside of him here in this world.

They called it a day and went to a diner. Sammy acted the same way he did for breakfast and lunch, confused and afraid and trying to order the barest minimum. He didn't know what happened and why Sam was trying to starve himself when he already looked too thin for his good, but he sure as hell wasn't letting it last. Unfortunately, it only made the kid more and more agitated and tense, and he seemed like he was forcing himself to swallow down most of it in fear of wasting it and making Dean angry.

Most of the time, he just seemed lost. Defeated.

That night, before Dean got into his bed, Sam was sat up against his headboard as if waiting for something. Before he could ask, Sam held his wrist out.

He saw the burns again, the scars and scabs beneath and the shaves of skin, and didn't take more than a couple of seconds to figure out what it was that he was waiting for.

And then he felt sick all over again.

"Let's just ditch the chains for today, okay?" Dean muttered when he could finally find his voice. Couldn't look the damn kid in the eye when he said it, acting like he was the same piece of shit that kept him shackled like a prisoner. He just didn't know how to tell him the truth, because it never felt like the right time. Making him suspicious of something strange or entirely out of the ordinary, at least any more than he probably already was, didn't sound like it'd end well either.

Sam looked uncertain again, like when he told him he won't hurt him in the morning and handed him his share of money and ordered his meals for him and told him he did a good job.

Dean didn't know what to think of it all anymore.

**...**

_Sam was sprawled down sideways on the ground, arm held protectively over his bruised face. There was a thick line of blood streaming from his nose, smearing at his lips, and to the bottom of his chin, tears tracking down his purpled, cut cheeks as his watery, pained eyes gazed up at him._

_Dean's own hands found themselves reaching down to his shirt, fingers curling around its collar tightly._

_"Up," he demanded, his tone cold and hard. There was fury and disgust and hatred burning in his body. He hauled him up, Sam writhing in his grasp, breaths gasping out at whatever agony he felt by the movement as he forced him to his knees._

_Sam's hands came up to grab at Dean's arms, struggling to keep himself upright as his body swayed forward. "D-De_ —" _he rasped. He was cut off by his own choking and coughing, specks of blood spluttering out. The leniency that he was desperately begging for through his eyes was denied brutally as Dean gripped both his bonier wrists and shoved them off._

_"S-said I was... sorry… Dean," Sam mumbled, voice cracking. He was wobbling on his knees._

_"We're tight on money, you fuckin' idiot," his own voice hissed, slurring from the alcohol in his system and making the world dim and hazy. His vitriolic words continued to simmer on his tongue, "'Could 'ave taken those bastards, but you_ — _you just had t'try to play the goddamn hero and make us lose it! 'Cause that went so great the last time you tried."_

_"Th-they were...too many," Sam tried, nearly pleading. "We couldn't 'ave_ _won…you were d-drunk an-and I'm n-not the...the same." He sounded ashamed at the last words, almost a whisper. "M'sorry."_

_"Hard to give a shit when that's all you say now," he spat, hand fisting into his hair, and only felt angrier at the pained whimper emitting from his throat, at his fingers shooting up to try loosening his own. "And then you go and fuck everything up again the way you always do."_

**...**

Dean snapped into wakefulness.

The first thing that set in, like glass shards on his insides, was the sorrow.

The second was the sickness of it all, jolting his gut.

The third was fury, blazing throughout his veins.

There wasn't quite a question as to whether that was just a dream or not. It was too vivid to be one, too realistic. It sure  _felt_  like a memory, although there was a slight sense of detachment to it, as if it wasn't his own.

He glanced over to Sam, saw his battered face in the dark and realized.

_"I-I'm s-sorry about last night."_

_"It wasn't my place, I know. I-I won't do it again, Dean."_

He realized that  _that_  was 'last night'. The facial wounds matched exactly as in the wretched dream.

He couldn't help but wonder how, even in another world, anything could fuck him up so much in the head that he'd do that to  _Sammy_. He could barely imagine it, let alone understand. No matter what he had done, whatever had happened between them, he couldn't ever bring himself to raise his hand like that on him. Nothing could ever make him hurt Sam like the monsters he should have been protecting him from.

In the past, things had gotten physical between them. Few times in their life, Dean had dished a punch or two out under the influence of his overwhelming emotions and Sam had taken it silently. Once, it was after the death of their father, pushed too hard to his breaking point by his brother constantly pointing out the truths of his grief, seeing right through him like he was as transparent as glass. He hadn't wanted Sam to know of what losing his only parental figure was doing to him. He had wanted him to believe he was okay, hadn't wanted him to keep asking, because if he did then one day he might discover what their father had whispered about him in his own ear in his final moments.

And so he had kept Sam at arm's length, afraid that the secret, weighing down in his gut like stones, would come spilling out, that Sam would find out and not be able to come back from it.

Sam had known anyway, somehow, that there was something he wasn't spitting out.

And he had known Dean wasn't okay, no matter how hard he tried to convince him he was, no matter how strong he acted. He had hated how well he knew him. Then more than ever, he had needed him to stop seeing into him so clearly.

He had hated that Sam was forcing him to deal with his pain in a way he didn't understand.

That day, when he lashed out, he felt like absolute shit for it. The split in his lip had nagged at Dean until it healed completely, the constant guilt of it that it was  _his_  fist that did it.

Another time, he was overcome by fear for Sam. There were angels, heaven itself (which sounded like a big deal before he discovered that everyone in it, besides Cas, was a bag of dicks) threatening to kill his brother if Dean didn't stop him from going down the dark path that he was. His fear became anger, and his fists went flying, and his foot went in his mouth.

He justified it to himself back then. Now, being in this world, and moreover, after that vision, it just felt way too fucking wrong.

"Are you okay?" Sam's quiet voice piped up from the other bed.

Dean didn't answer for a moment, contemplating whether he should tell the truth or not. He reclined back down on his bed, arm coming up to rest across his eyes. His breathing sounded too loud and heavy in the silence.

How would Sam react right now if he told him?

That he wasn't the same Dean, that he came from a different world where he wasn't as horrible as this Sam knew him to be, where the things that happen here at his hand were so far from who he was?

Would Sam believe him?

How did he tell him something like that? It was unbelievable, even for their standards. On top of that, it never really seemed like the right time, something always holding the words back in his throat. He'd tried the entire day and he couldn't. He still couldn't..

"Yeah, I'm fine," Dean murmured, but it was easily audible in the hushed room. "Go back to sleep, Sammy."

Dean figured that was it, that he would listen and leave it alone (unlike his own Sam).

But then, after a while as if he had been mustering up courage, he asked, "What… what was it, uh... a-about? I mean, y-you don't...you don't have to tell me or anything. I was just…i-if you want…"

Once, it would have been irritating. Sammy asking too many questions (ever since he was small, still growing into his big eyes and Dean's hand-me-downs), trying to help as if Dean needed it, as if he wasn't the older brother. Once, on some occasions, it would have been warming to know that this was his way of showing he cared, that he was here and that he wanted to help.

It was just saddening now.

This kid, beaten black and blue, and still caring too much for the bastard that did it.

This kid, defeated and tired, lacking all of that quiet confidence and self-worth that he once possessed, that made him himself. Now he was ready to make his entire life about compensating for his mistakes, on keeping himself as undisruptive and untroublesome as possible, set on making up to a man who'd never accept him again for the rest of his time.

His breaths were beginning to sound a little short. "I-I'll just—"

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean cut him off, arm still laid across his eyes. His voice was soft and rough, and one he hadn't used in a long time. It used to be meant for soothing. This time, it felt more like he was trying not to spook him, or like he was trying not to break something fragile in the atmosphere by speaking too loud. "You don't worry about a thing."

And that was that.

Dean didn't sleep again for fear of his horrible dreams. He wondered if the reason Sam didn't either was the same (wondered if they were about a man who was supposed to be his big brother but became his worst nightmare instead). The rest of the night was spent watching thoughts play across plain white ceilings, both of them silent and inside their own heads.

**…**

"You coming along?" Dean asked uncertainly. He honestly didn't think Sam should be hunting with the state he was in, but he wouldn't put it past the bastard that he would force him to.

But it seemed Sam didn't expect to be asked that, judging by the puzzlement on his face.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"No...it's just…" Sam trailed off, shifting against the doorway he was leaning against. He didn't look relaxed. It appeared to be more out of fatigue and a need for physical support. "Y-you haven't… let me come with si—" He paused, and as if thinking better of finishing that sentence (as if he was trying to avoid reminding him), he replaced it with an earnest, "I'd like to."

Well, fuck. Asking that question was a bad idea.

Because Sam took it as an invitation, and he seemed genuinely uplifted about getting to tag along. And Dean  _really_  didn't want him to.

Sam was too physically diminished for a hunt. He was probably rusty as hell from however long he hadn't been on the job. On top of that, his injuries were still bad. The kid was always favoring his ribs. His gait was slow and slightly unsteady due to his limp.

No way was Dean letting him add to that.

"Actually, uh… I think it's best if you stayed behind this time too."

Sam's face went crestfallen.

"Sorry, man," Dean apologized, although he wasn't. It was best for Sam, after all.

But the expression on Sam's face made him feel like crap anyway.

"I understand." He sounded resigned. Tired and defeated as the way he always looked these days.

And it was then that Dean understood too.

He hadn't said much to clarify the reason why. As far as Sam knew, he was yet again not allowed to come along because of his supposed personal shortcomings, not because it was dangerous for him. That was the way it had been up until this point. He had seen a chance to regain some of the trust back, but he was shot down, all hopes dashed in only a minute.

"Some other time," Dean said, in an attempt to make him feel somewhat better. "When you're not so banged up."

Sam flinched slightly, an unreadable emotion crossing his features, and Dean had the intense urge to smack himself. That was a shitty thing to say when the person responsible for it looked like him.

He seemed to school himself after a couple of seconds and nodded.

Dean left without another word and carried the regret with him the entire drive.

**…**

The prediction that Sam narrowed down, based on a certain pattern, on where the shapeshifter would attack next was a family in a blue suburban house. The father had graduated from NYU and went on to become a great doctor in the city. The mother had passed law with flying colors, now holding down a steady job in her field as well. Their kids went to private, high-achieving schools. They were the epitome of a picturesque little apple-pie life; white picket-fence, two dogs and a backyard, the whole nine yards.

He saw a boy, about seventeen years old, walk up to the door. Looked a lot like the Montgomery family's eldest son, Luke.

Nothing out of the ordinary...besides the huge fucking knife in his hand.

He grabbed his duffel bag, opened the door and folded himself out of the car.

**...**

"So,  _Luke_ ," Dean cocked the trigger, pointing it at the creature. He smiled mockingly. "What's cookin'?"

"Nothin' much, hunter," the shapeshifter sneered. "Might be feeding you your guts pretty soon though."

"Sure, if I don't put a silver bullet in yours first," Dean retorted.

This was where it all went wrong.

The door opened from behind the creature, and Ruth Montgomery appeared.

And then the rest was a blur of events.

The mother was begging, frantically rushed, incoherent pleas for mercy as she threw herself in front of the shapeshifter, her arms wrapping around it behind her, unaware that she was protecting a monster merely wearing her son's face. He was forcing himself to remain composed and calm as he firmly explained to her that that wasn't her son.

She couldn't understand that. In her mind, and in the world she had lived her entire life, nothing like that was even remotely possible. Instead, she tried to tell him that he was 'delusional and needed professional help' in a trembling, terrified voice that suggested she was trying not to offend him, lest he fired the gun.

"Ma'am, you have to trust me," Dean warned, low and firm. "Or it might cost you your life and your family's. That thing is  _not_  your son."

"Pl-please. Put the gun down," she pleaded, her voice small and terrified.

And then the creature made its move, wrapped its arm around her throat and placed a knife to it, the sound of her gasp colliding like a stone into Dean's chest. The monster smirked on Luke's lips as it said, "What she said."

"L-Luke?" Ruth whimpered tremulously, shocked and confused and afraid, and Dean hated the sound of a life in danger. He desperately hoped that it didn't become the sound of the slice of metal against skin and the gurgling noises from an overflowing throat, them choking on their own blood. The sound of his failure at being able to save an innocent person from their end. "Baby, what are you…"

"Let her go," Dean demanded.

"Put the gun down," the shapeshifter ordered. He pushed the knife closer to her throat threateningly. "Or I kill her."

So Dean did, on the off-chance that it might save her life. There was no way he could get a shot at the monster, not without hurting its victim. He slowly lowered on one knee, hands raised, and placed the gun on the ground.

" _L_ _et_. Her  _go_ ," he repeated as he stood back to his feet, low and calm.

"Luke?" Ruth sobbed, now crying hysterically.

In the end, the creature killed her anyway. It slashed her throat, and watching her gurgle on her own blood as she writhed on the ground was just as brutal and sickening as it always was. Another innocent life added to the list of thousands of others he failed to save, horrifically taken right in front of him, and he couldn't do a goddamn  _thing_.

In the end, the monster got him too. He saw it surge forward towards him, a swift blur of movement that ended with pain exploding on his temple for the briefest moment.

And then darkness.

**…**

Dean woke up to his hands trapped to a pillar by duct tape and his own face smirking back at him.

"Morning, sunshine," it said, tilting its head jeeringly. "Had a nice nap?"

Ruth's blank eyes staring beyond the world flashed in his mind, front of her clothes drenched in blood. He clenched his eyes shut, grinding out, "You son of a bitch."

"Oh please. Did you really think it would go any other way?" it remarked carelessly. "Hello.  _Monster_." It gestured at itself. Its face morphed into a sombre, taunting expression. "Isn't that what you denim-clad bastards call us?"

"Isn't that what you are?"

"I didn't kill anyone until your kind killed my family."

"These families didn't do anything to you."

"My family didn't do anything to the hunters that took them away from me either," it snarled. The shifter leaned into his face. "You're all the same. And I'm going to  _enjoy_  hurting the one you love, wearing  _your_  face, Dean Winchester."

And then he smiled, vicious and twisted, as he said, "And here's the best part; he's going to let me do it, because he's going to believe it's really you."

It was in that moment that it hit him, like ice running through his veins and a glacier in his chest; why it was wearing Dean's skin and what it was going to do once it walked out of the doors. Fuck, this was what he loathed the most about hunting these sons of bitches. They touched you once and then they knew everything you knew. He wasn't sure of the location the bastard dragged him to, but however much time he might need to escape could be just enough time for the shifter to get to his brother. His heart began to speed, pounding in his ears.

Dean jolted forward, duct tape pulling on his skin and joints, as he hissed, "Don't you fucking  _dare_ touch him!"

"Oh come on!" The fucker was laughing. "What, is it like, 'no one can beat the shit out of my baby brother but me' kind of thing? I wanna have my hand at it too."

"Stay the hell away from Sam, you hear me?" Dean snarled. "You do anything to him, I'll make you wish you'd joined your  _family_."

The shifter's face went cold and hard. For a moment, it remained silent.

Its next words froze the blood in Dean's veins.

It smiled, eyes as blank as an endless abyss. "What you did to him in this world," it whispered. "It's going to be a walk in the park compared to what I'm going to do to him. And when I'm done, I'm going to bring all his pieces here and burn them right in front of you."

With that, the shapeshifter turned and headed towards the exit.

And Dean's yells echoed off the walls, going from angry to fearful to desperate.

Until the slam of the warehouse's door cut them off.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: non-graphic (or slightly graphic) scene of physical abuse, past mentions of physical and verbal abuse

 

Real Universe

"I heard your call."

Sam startled when the gravelly voice piped up from behind him, fingers instinctually reaching for his knife. Realizing it was merely Castiel, he relaxed, hand withdrawing.

"What happened?" the angel asked, walking forward. His head was tilted as he examined Dean's prone form on the couch.

"I don't know," Sam answered, watching him scrutinize his brother. There was an intense sense of hope brewing in his chest. Maybe Castiel would know what was wrong and how to fix it. "He just—just didn't wake up today. I was hoping maybe you could...you know, look into him or something?"

Castiel placed his hand on Dean's forehead. Sam found himself holding his breath. For the longest moment, everything was still and silent. Castiel's brow was furrowed, initially in concentration before his expression took on a note of puzzlement instead.

"What?" Sam questioned, mirroring his confusion and concern.

Castiel removed his hand.

"There is nothing," he declared quietly.

And then he couldn't breathe at all.

Sam swallowed, his mouth dry. "What… what do you mean by that?"

"His consciousness is not here. It seems to have been transferred somewhere else."

Sam shook his head, frowning in bewilderment. "Where is it then?"

"I do not know. Possibly in another body, or even another world." The thought of the latter possibility jolted his heart fearfully. How did he bring his brother back from another world? He wouldn't know where to even start. If alternate universes really existed, there must be millions of them. "Only a powerful being can be responsible for something like this."

Sam lifted an eyebrow. "A powerful being like?" he inquired.

"An archangel."

Sam closed his eyes, breathing deeply. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course. The plausibility of that had already crossed his mind.

But he couldn't figure out how it all played into heaven's twisted scheme, how it was meant to compel Dean to give his consent. Whatever it was, whatever they had in their minds, he hoped to God that Dean would hold on and not cave in, that he wouldn't fall right into whatever trap they had set up for him until Sam got him out.

"How do we bring him back?"

"I'm afraid I don't know," Castiel replied. "But rest assured, I won't stop until I do, Sam."

Sam's mouth quirked up into a slight smile, gaining consolation from the angel's words and the depth of his loyalty and concern for his brother. "Thanks, Cas."

The breezing flutter of wings was the only response that followed.

**…**

"I'm sorry," he told him, yet again, the same words he had been telling his brother these past few months, but could never quite convey just how much he meant them. He said them enough times for Dean to grow tired of them, for them to become trite. He didn't know how to explain that the shame and guilt he felt burned deeply about too many things, that he felt too sick to eat most days from it all and that his mind raced every night from remembrances of everything he had done to him until he fell asleep at 3am dreaming of them.

"I hurt you," he mumbled, his voice weighed with compunction. His heart felt swollen in his sternum, throbbing in a dull ache with every example that ran through his mind of the times he caused pain to his brother. His fingers tightened slightly around Dean's wrist, before moving up to enclose around his. "I keep hurting you. You deserve better."

It started from his mother's death above  _his_  crib when he was six months old, started from Dean being forced to grow up too soon so that Sam wouldn't have to. And then, it was Stanford. Him running away and leaving behind the person that sacrificed more for him than he deserved. And then the deal. Hell. That was his fault too, because it never would have happened if he was smarter, more careful, if he didn't turn his back on a man that was trying to kill him.

And then it was his betrayal of the worst kind (right after the worst period of his brother's life, no less), of choosing a demon over his only family and essentially crossing the line that kept him from being the monster he was fated to be by sucking her blood.

But he did it for him. The horrible things he did this past year—they were all for Dean.

Not that it was an excuse or a justification or something that made it better or okay. Not at all. Nothing could ever make the sins he committed seem better or okay.

But it wasn't all selfish intentions. It wasn't all about the rush of power and trying to prove to himself that he could still do right out there even if he was all wrong on the inside. He did it because he didn't want Lilith to take his brother away again, didn't want him to suffer any more of the horrors that never should have happened to him.

"I just didn't want to lose you again, you know?" Sam said softly, a woeful half-smile tilting at one corner of his lips. He huffed out a sad, bitter laugh. "But I guess I did anyway."

**…**

Alternate Universe

Dean came back the same way he did every time hunts didn't go too well.

He came back angrier and colder than usual, face like stone and fists clenched like it too.

He came back slamming doors and snapping orders and spitting words that stabbed Sam in the chest like knives.

Perhaps a bit harder after the way Dean had been acting since yesterday. It seemed that as much as he tried to remember that it wasn't real (like the last time), some deeper part of him still went hoping that it was. Some part of him still hoped that they could go back.

But Dean was looking at him like that again, like he couldn't stand the sight of him.

And once more again, Sam realized it.

That it wouldn't ever happen.

Sam put down the book he was reading. "Did, uh… did s-something happen? On the hunt?" he asked, his tone nervous and guarded to his own ears as Dean took a gulpful of his whiskey. He didn't know if the shapeshifter got away or if somebody got hurt. What if Sam did something wrong? Gave him faulty information?

Dean pulled the bottle away, swiping at his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Don't need a fucking therapy session, jackass," he sneered. "So how about you piss off before you end up bloody again."

Sam forced himself to nod, jerky and tentative, when he could barely move from his paralyzing anxiety. More often than not on days like these, he ended up bloody anyway whether he did something provocative or not, but maybe this could be one of those scarce times when Dean passed out before that, if he just kept quiet and kept himself as unnoticeable as possible. He tried to refocus on the book, one that might help in their apocalypse problem. Maybe one day, when he'd figure out a way to clean up his mess, Dean would…

He wouldn't change. Not really. That wasn't exactly within his control anymore. Sam would always have to tiptoe around him for the rest of their lives, would always have to watch what he said and did around him so that Dean wouldn't lose his temper. He brought that on himself. He made Dean like this.

But maybe he wouldn't hate him so much. It did seem like wishful thinking at times, but sometimes he wondered if he could change the way Dean looked at him nowadays, even just a little bit, if he just managed to find a way to avert the apocalypse, to fix what he broke. Maybe he could put at least some of the pieces of their relationship back together too by doing that.

"Fell for it again, didn't you, you dumb piece of shit?"

Sam's head snapped upwards from its bowed position, gaze ripping away from the text he was barely reading. He watched as Dean threw his head back and took another gulp from his bottle at the small lounge table.

He thought of Dean touching his wrist after he unchained it, thumb brushing over it in the gentlest way. Thought of Dean giving him half his money and ordering more food for him than he could stomach anymore and saying  _good job, Sammy_  and telling him not to worry about a thing.

His chest hurt.

He blinked. Shook his head. "N-no," he finally answered after a moment, when he could bring himself to speak. "I… I knew this time."

There was the tiniest nagging sense that something wasn't right here, but he hadn't felt right in a long while around Dean.

"Right." Dean scoffed a laugh, taunting and sarcastic. "So college boy's getting smart again, huh? If only you used that big brain of yours when that demon bitch had you under her throes."

Sam's eyes darted away, didn't dare meet the eyes boring into him. His heart was pounding again, palms sweaty and hot and his throat lumpy. His muscles were tense and tight, the past wounds on his body still throbbing and aching and more prominent in his mind in this moment.

It was going to happen again.

This was how it often started, and it only got worse from here.

And so it did.

Maybe Sam was the one who gave all the wrong answers and responses, even though he tried so hard not to. Maybe it didn't matter even if he didn't. Sometimes he couldn't tell.

But Dean's fists flew and his belt came off and Sam's bruises became deeper and darker on his flesh. He slammed his head into walls and his body into furniture and stained his blood onto the carpets.

He snarled out awful things Sam would fall asleep remembering over and over that night.

But it didn't quite end the same.

It didn't end with his hands chained to a bed, back or ribs aching even more when they pressed into the hard mattress, spots of red drying to brown on the sheets. It didn't end with him falling unconscious with Dean's words hanging over his head, him dreaming of Dean's hands wrapped around his throat until he woke up choking in the middle of the night.

It ended with Dean on his knees over him, a knife raised above his head, him on the ground too sick and tired and weak from the agony to move. Finally doing what Sam stopped waiting for months ago, what he promised in that voicemail, a fate far better than what he got and less than what he deserved. His kind of sins didn't get penance by death alone.

He laid there and waited for it to go into his heart with an explosion of pain. He stayed still and thought of staying like that until it stopped beating (stopped hurting too).

And then there was the sound of a door bursting open.

And then Dean was gone.

There was talking. And then a blur of commotion, angry yells and collisions of flesh on flesh and loud grunts. More collisions of flesh on flesh and loud grunts. Gunshots. He tried to move, tried to see what was going on because Dean might be in trouble and he had to help him, had to stop whatever was hurting him but his battered body wasn't cooperating and his aching eyes kept blurring away and trying to close down and his mind kept begging for darkness.

And then there was nothing.

**…**

When Sam woke up, there was a callous hand cradling his jaw, fingers rubbing cloth lightly over the bloodied, stinging wounds on his face. It felt good, familiar but strange, so he found himself pushing into it.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Dean.

His vision blurred and swayed in front of him before it focused, and his heart nearly jumped out of his sternum, gut squeezing with terror. He gasped, trying to twist away, but it only made his body hurt. There was a weight falling on his shoulder, making him flinch. Dean's voice murmured, "Relax. Just relax."

He blinked, swallowed his hammering heart down and looked away, his lungs tight. He stared past him and at the ceiling instead, his head throbbing. His upper body hurt, along with his thighs and legs.

He remembered sounds in the background before his eyes fell shut, angry yells and pounding fists on bone and flesh and pained grunts. Gunshots. Chaos. His gut clenched with an irrational sense of guilt and fear. He passed out, left Dean to deal with it alone when he was  _right there_. He knew these feelings were illogical, but now with this voidless darkness inside of Dean, logic barely mattered to him, and if Dean felt wronged, then Sam did something wrong. That was how things were going to be after doing the things he did to his brother.

He was still staring at the ceiling, remorse and anxiety churning in his gut. He swallowed, closed his eyes and whispered, "Are you okay?"

Dean didn't answer him, ignored him as if he never said anything. He was still wiping at his wounds, and he was too gentle, and Sam didn't know what that meant because these were the same hands that were diving into his body before he woke up. These were the same hands that were about to put a knife in his chest and end him once and for all.

"Nothing's broken," Dean's voice told him, soft as the way his hands cleaned his blood off. He wasn't sure what was really happening anymore, and he was too exhausted to figure it out. "Ribs are probably bruised though."

Sam choked down a sob of fear and pain and sorrow, tears gathering in his eyes as the white paint grew hazy above him. There was a heavy ache in his pounding chest, burning behind his eyes now, the soul-deep fatigue setting in again because he couldn't stop screwing things up and he couldn't stop making Dean mad and he couldn't stop hurting inside and out.

Because in the end, no matter how hard he used to try to tell himself otherwise, Dean really did loathe him enough to want to kill him. He forced his brother to come to a point where he was so sick and tired of him that he wouldn't think twice about shoving a knife in him.

He squirmed slightly on the bed, sore and pained, and the strangled sob came out anyway.

Dean's hand stilled on his face, and so did every muscle in Sam's body.

And for the longest moment, everything was silent.

_Same ol' Sammy. Always crying like a bitch when the shit you do come back to bite you in the ass._

And then, "Sam…"

He shook his head quickly, and it disturbed the bruises circling his throat. "I'm not…"

"Sam, listen..."

"Sorry," he rasped, trembling hands moving up to press into his eyes. He tried to curl up on his side, but it hurt too much, so he gave up. His cheeks felt hot from the embarrassment and tears. Dean hated it when he acted weak and pathetic, taunted him about it for a long time after, and he hated himself for it just as much but for whatever reason, the tears were pouring out of him in this moment and he couldn't make it stop. Whatever happened next, he prayed to a God that had never quite believed in him that it wouldn't escalate into another physical battering. He didn't know if he would be able to take it today. "S-sorry."

And then there were fingers in his hair, warm and tender. Sam flinched hard before he froze, breaths shuddering along with the rest of him, swallowed down a lump of fear. He waited for them to close together and pull.

"Sammy," Dean murmured softly, sounded like the way he did back when he loved him once. The childish nickname felt like a stab in the heart, and he wished he would stop. Stop whatever he was doing, whatever game he was playing. Sam felt his roughened hands brush through his locks instead, felt them break through the knots in his hair lightly, and he just  _couldn't fucking understand what was going on_. He couldn't understand what he was supposed to do. He couldn't connect the gentle hands of the man before him to the crude fists ramming into him and clutching a knife above him before he fell unconscious. "Sammy, hey. It... it was the shapeshifter, man. I swear, it wasn't me here. You gotta believe that. Son of a bitch got the drop on me and took my face."

Sam finally looked at him. He blinked, forehead scrunching in confusion. And then a wave of disbelief went through him.

And then it was replaced by a heat of shame coursing through his chest. Could he really have been that stupid to not have been able to tell the difference between his own brother and a shapeshifter? Once, he would have figured it out, in no more than a few seconds, just by a single facial expression that seemed out of place. Now he spent hours in a room with a monster, thinking it was his own brother.

What would have happened if the shapeshifter had escaped? They would have lost it, would have had to lose a few more lives before they could find it again, all of which would have been avoided if he had just been smarter.

_Wow, you really are a moron, aren't you? Chugging on all that demon blood's probably given you brain damage at this point._

"I… I didn't know," Sam confessed, fingers trembling. His gaze was rooted to them, couldn't bring himself to look his brother in the eye from his fear (fear that he would set him off by just one wrong move, that the gentle hands would turn into fists again) as well as shame. He kept failing. No matter what he did, he just  _kept fucking failing_. "I should have. I-I'm sorry. He might have gotten away and killed more people a-and it would have been my f—"

And then the gentle hand did turn into a fist, crumpling the cloth, and Sam's muscles tensed up. It snapped away from his face, hurling the cloth away. Sam clenched his eyes shut in anticipation of pain. "For fuck's sake, Sam, would you just—just stop fucking apologizing about everything!"

_You know something, Sam? I'm getting real sick and tired of you saying that every damn time you fuck shit up._

Sam jolted violently and resolved to keep quiet now because maybe that was what Dean wanted, but he didn't really seem happy with that either. Dean closed his eyes, rubbed a hand over his face and breathed hard through his emotions. Sam didn't know what to do. He didn't know what he was supposed to say. But maybe it didn't matter what he said or did because Sam was the problem and Dean just hated everything he said and did because he hated  _him_.

He supposed Dean was finally beginning to lose his patience, the tolerance he needed to keep up the game.

And then the hand was back, cloth brushing over the thick line of dried blood from his nose, still as softly as it was before. "Sorry, man," he muttered, and yet again, left him feeling completely lost.

If Sam traced back in his recent memories, he could clearly remember Dean walking over salt lines, touching iron and silver bullets without batting an eye. He could remember Dean spilling a bit of holy water on himself from an over-filled bottle.

None of it made any sense.

**…**

He woke up the next morning to the sound of spraying water through thin bathroom walls, melted ice packs beneath his sore and aching body and bandages over his wounds.

The clock read 8:17am when he grabbed it to look at the time. He should have been awake long before, should have been back with Dean's breakfast by now and found another hunt.

Sam forced himself to sit up, but folding his body in any way was painful. Moving was painful. His head still ached from the hits it had taken by—

By the shapeshifter's fists. Not Dean's. The shapeshifter's.

On any other day, it'd be easy to predict Dean's mood once he'd walk out of the bathroom (not that he would ever have to on the normal days, he supposed, because he wouldn't be allowed to sleep in like this in the first place), but nowadays Dean wasn't acting the way he should. Sam couldn't figure it out, this sudden change in him. He wasn't a monster but he wasn't acting like himself either. Sam couldn't tell if it was genuine or just a more elaborate and dragged out version of his twisted game. If it was the former, he didn't know what to think. It would make zero sense, because the effects that Hell had on Dean couldn't just be reversed like that so instantly unless there was an external force involved, and of a powerful being at that. He didn't believe there was anything in this world that liked him enough to help him in this way.

He didn't believe he'd deserve it anyway.

But he did believe Dean deserved to be saved. He did think someone would want to help Dean come out of the darkness and rage he was suffering through, that could be controlled and quelled at least somewhat by violence on Sam's body. Could it be Michael? It seemed unlikely. It seemed as if it would work more in the angels' favor to use this darkness in order to make him say yes to Michael. It was only a matter of finding them, which they couldn't due to the concealment sigils on their ribs.

But if it was the latter, then that wouldn't make sense either. Dean was acting like…

Like the Dean he used to be. Like the Dean he missed so much that it left him sick and aching.

Nothing made sense, but Sam didn't want to think anymore. It wouldn't last anyway, and that he knew. That he could make sense of, if nothing else.

So he dragged himself out of bed, gradually forcing his body through the burning and hurting with every fold or pull of his flesh. By the time Dean would be out, he hoped he'd at least have brought his breakfast before he got too pissed about it.

It took him nearly an entire minute to get to his jacket and wear it on.

**…**

When he reached Fleetwood Diner, he realized that his limping gait and swollen, bruised face might not be going as unnoticed as he'd hoped. The few people in the diner were staring at him, mumbling about him to their companions; a group of teenage boys laughed among themselves while throwing glances at him. Maybe it wasn't so easy to overlook this time because he looked more like a truck ran over him and less like a dumb, egotistical man who couldn't walk away from a bar fight.

His cheeks burned in embarrassment and self-consciousness, and he ducked his head down, trying to hide behind his hair. He tugged the collar of his jacket up, hunched in on himself to conceal his face as much as possible.

He reached the counter and sat on a stool. He kept his eyes fixed on an empty spot on it and hoped that nobody would say anything to him about his appearance.

Maybe it was a bad idea to come out here looking like this, risk trouble that they didn't need by standing out. But he calmed the slightest bit when he considered that people usually wouldn't assume domestic violence to be the cause of any injuries on men. He still wanted to get out of here as soon as possible, away from prying, curious eyes and pitying stares and the rings of raccous, youthful laughter.

"Excuse me," he rasped, and his voice came out too quiet. He cleared his throat and spoke a bit louder. "Excuse me." When the waitress turned around on the other side of the counter bar in his peripheral vision, he continued, "I'd—I'd like to make an order to go, please."

He heard no response for a long moment. Before he could look up, confused, he heard a familiar voice, murmuring, "Oh, honey."

His gaze lifted to land on a face he saw only a day ago, a face that echoed of a beautiful and loving mother that he never got to know.

Dorothy didn't say anything further to acknowledge his damaged state, and he was grateful for that.

"What would you like, sweetie?"

"Two black coffees and a BLT with swiss cheese and grilled onions, a plate of sausages and three pancakes," he listed, remembering Dean's last two breakfast orders here.

She wrote down the items on her notepad. "Powdered sugar and blueberries?" she asked casually.

Sam nodded.

"Anythin' else?"

He shook his head. "No, ma'am, that's all. Thank you."

She smiled at him, and then turned and walked into the kitchen to give his orders. She returned a moment later and leaned forward over the counter, smiling once more, still as kindly as the last time they met. "Your name's Sam, isn't it?" Sam nodded affirmatively. "And your brother is… Dean?"

"Yeah."

"Where you two from?"

"Everywhere. But, uh… we were born in Kansas."

"Yeah? Why'd you move around so much?"

"'Cause of my dad's work. He was a mechanic."

"You two have any other family? Or is it… is it just you two now?"

"Just us."

"Oh." She sounded somewhat disappointed, even as she tried not to sound like it. "I see."

"Well, my dad couldn't be around very often where we were kids, so in a way I guess it's... it's always just been us, you know? Dean took care of me when we were kids. He still does that, even though it gets pretty suffocating sometimes." He huffed out a small chuckle that sounded just the slightest bit nervous. Dorothy smiled tightly in this way that made him feel like she didn't really buy it. Either she was too good at reading people or Sam just wasn't as subtle or convincing as he used to be.

They lapsed into a silence. For a long moment, Dorothy didn't speak.

And then, as if finally building up the courage, she said softly, "Sam, you don't have to… you don't have to hide it. I know we barely know each other, dear, but… I will understand, I promise. And if you're afraid, I won't do anything against your will, 'cause that'll just cause trouble you aren't ready for, but you can at least talk to me." She paused, breathing deeply. "He… he did it again, didn't he?"

"He didn't do anything to me," he stated, blunt and firm, and for once, it was the truth. Maybe if it were anyone else, he would have told them to mind their own business, but she looked too much like the picture in his father's wallet and she genuinely meant well, had gone through something bad and was trying to make some good out of it for someone else, and Sam could understand that. She just didn't know who it was that she was trying to help. "Those men… they came back again."

She was about to reply, mouth opening, before someone called her from the kitchen, "Dorothy!"

She glanced at him briefly before she straightened and rushed inside. She came out sometime later with a bag and a tray of food that he assumed was someone else's order in both her hands. She jerked her head in the direction of what turned out to be an empty booth when Sam looked over, and when he turned his eyes back to her, she was smiling. Sam stared at her, not quite sure what she wanted of him. "Come on, darling," Dorothy said and walked towards the unoccupied table.

He followed her, slow and unsteady, still not sure what for. When they reached the booth, she placed both the bag and tray on the table. "Sit," she said.

"I… I don't understand," he replied, brows scrunching together. "I didn't order this."

She laughed lightly at his perplexed frown. "I know, honey. But I ordered it for you."

"I-I can't. I really have to get going, and I don't even have the money for it any—"

She patted his shoulder. "It's on me."

"Ma'am, I…"

"Call me Dorothy."

Sam blinked. "I… Dorothy… thank you, but… I can't stay that long. And I'm not… I mean, I'm already taking all that food—"

"None of that's for you though, is it? That's everything Dean orders." He was somewhat taken aback at the fact that she observed that much. She then placed her hand on top of his, warm and tender. "I can't help you the way I wish I could, baby. But I can do this, right?" She smiled, eyes slightly reddened, and Sam didn't really want her to feel upset for him. "I can do this. And if you leave now, you'd be takin' a woman's peace of mind and sleep from her with you…" She snorted wetly. "Well, more than you already have, I suppose."

Sam wished he could somehow make her understand that she was feeling too much for nothing, for someone who was nothing. But she seemed set on what she believed, no matter how much he tried to divert her.

He was already late enough as it was, but… he would try to make it quick, try to get back as fast as it was possible to without putting too much of a strain on his injuries.

He sat down reluctantly, anxiety and trepidation churning in his body.

"And if he asks why you took so long, blame it on me, okay? Tell him that the dumb waitress at the counter today was working at a snail's pace and took too long to get the order." Dorothy winked at him, patted his hand and chuckled.

She told him about her family while he ate, about her wonderful, sweet boy ("Not too unlike you. He even has the long hair!") and her husband who was the gentlest and kindest man she had ever met. They found each other, four years after she left her ex-husband, at the local library, reading the same book. He asked to sit with her at her table on one of the few vacant seats, and eventually they began a conversation about the book they were reading. Even though she was so lost and disconnected after her past relationship, he managed to get her out of her shell, and she realized that they connected perfectly with each other.

Sam found that he quite enjoyed her warm presence in spite of his disquietude. He hadn't been in any other company other than Dean's in a long while, and Bobby's once, many months ago. For a while, he could almost forget about the sorrows of his own life by listening to someone else's stories of newfound happiness, and that felt good in a way nothing had for quite a time.

**…**

Real Universe

Sam woke up to his brother's arm stirring beneath his hand. He sobered, all sleep chased away instantly as his head shot up from his sleeping bag on the floor, eyes growing wide as shock froze his heart. It was prompty followed by hope blooming in his chest, elation and relief loosening the coil around his ribs. Maybe this was it. Dean was finally coming back to him and whatever did this was done with its sick, twisted game.

Later, he would think he should have known that it wasn't ever so simple when the game was being played with a Winchester.

But right now, he watched closely, fixated, lips on the brink of an astonished, awed smile as Dean made his first willing movements in days, finally regaining his characteristic restlessness. He grimaced briefly at the struggle of awakening from his coma, head shifting against his pillow. His fingers curled inwards, cracking slightly, before they stretched out.

When his green eyes finally opened and focused on him, Sam's face broke into a rejoiced grin.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there is reference to past abuse ahead, possibly slightly graphic so please, please beware if it is a trigger

**Alternate Universe**

 

Dean came out of the shower to an empty room, a very wounded little brother missing from his bed, which was enough to have his heart pounding in his ears, fear coiling tightly around his ribs. Considering how Sam would have every goddamn right to run away from this motel (from  _him_ , or at least who he thought he was) he considered that possibility first and glanced over at their bags. Sam's stuff was still there, so he could fortunately tick that off the list. If Sam had actually attempted to find emancipation from him, he wasn't sure if he'd even have any right to go look for him and bring him back, although he would anyway because Sam wasn't exactly in the best physical condition right now, so he couldn't just leave him out there to fend for himself alone.

The second possibility was that the moron went to get _breakfast_. On foot, for fuck's sake, because the car was still out in the parking lot as he discovered when he went out to look, even though the damn kid could barely  _move_  without slouching and limping like an old man.

So he drove to the nearest diner, Fleetwood Diner, deciding that he wasn't  _really_  going to start full-out panicking unless he didn't see him there either. He doubted Sam would be able to go any further with his injuries, and that was the only place that was actually decent. If he couldn't be found there or at some nearby stores, then it would leave the worst possibility to be the only one.

Something or someone took his brother. And goddamnit, if he had to see another fucking wound on Sam after all the shit he'd already taken, he'd lose his goddamned mind.

Dean rushed out of the car and into the diner's entrance. The bell chimed as he went in, some people glancing his way while others were engrossed in their own activities. Among the latter was a certain brown-haired kid with his broad back turned towards him, sharing a table in a corner with a middle-aged woman wearing a waitressing uniform, laughing with him.

He didn't realize just how much he'd already been panicking until he felt the overwhelming billow of relief wash down on him, thrust his feet forward towards his brother. Maybe he should have thought through his next action, but the emotion of fear and worry always became his irritation or anger, and he found himself impulsively yelling as he strode towards him, "What the hell, Sam?!"

He really should have thought about how this Sam was different from the Sam he knew, that yelling to him was not just yelling but a forerunner to things going to absolute and utter shit. That the way he would react would be exactly as if he was expecting terrible things to follow.

Sam jolted violently as he snapped his head towards him before he shot up to his feet abruptly. There was only a split-second of his wide-eyed, frantic stare on Dean before he folded over with a wince, face paling as a strangulated, pained noise escaped his throat, his hand catching the corner of the booth for support, the other going to wrap around his middle. All of Dean's fear-fueled anger drained out of him, replaced with only concern and guilt as he rushed forward to catch him.

"De'n, m-maybe we should take—" His voice was trembling with fear as well as hurt, eyes clenching shut.

"Woah, woah, hey," Dean murmured gently as he grasped his elbow, touching the side of his neck with the other hand. He ignored the way Sam's weakened flinch felt like a stab in the heart. "Hey, it's alright. Just—just relax, okay? Come on." He stroked the side of his hair, careful of his wounds. Guided him back down to the booth with a light push on the shoulder. "Sit down. Just breathe through it, kiddo. Breathe."

He knelt down in front of him as Sam slowly lowered, breathing hard. Dean wiped off the beads of sweat gathering on his brother's forehead with his jacket sleeve. People were looking their way, but Dean ignored them adamantly.

"Sam, are you…" the woman softly asked, gripping Sam's hand and squeezing it. "Are you okay, sweetie?"

Sam nodded, his throat bobbing. "Yeah, it's fine. I'm… I'm fine." He smiled slightly at her, small and reassuring. "I've just been sorta jumpy ever since those men came back..."

The woman smiled tightly, and it didn't reach her eyes. She glanced at Dean briefly, an unreadable expression on her face.

Maybe somehow she knew. She knew. And it made him sick to think that he was being mistaken for some monstrous son of a bitch that he couldn't even  _deny_  being because who in the fuck would believe the truth?

"Let's go, Dean," Sam said, and then began to pull himself up with the support of the table and the back of the booth.

Dean looked at his half-eaten plate, grabbed his arm loosely to stop him. "What's the rush, Sammy? Why don't you finish that off before we go, huh?"

Sam shook his head. "No, I… we really should get going," He looked and sounded slightly nervous even though he tried to keep it away, but Dean could read him better than anyone. "Thank you, Dorothy."

"Is that for me?" Dean asked, gesturing at the take-away bag on the table. Even though he didn't have much of an appetite these days (how could he with everything that had been going on, that had already gone on here before he came?), he wanted the damn kid to just sit still for a minute and actually  _eat_  however much his sasquatch body needed its nutrients. "You know what, I'm starvin'. And I can't be bothered to wait til' we get to the motel, so…" With a pat to his knees, he stood to his feet. He tapped Sam's shoulder and motioned at him to move over. "Scoot, bitch."

Sam was looking at him, an unfathomable emotion flashing across his features, a flicker of something soft and confused and lost. The woman with the blonde-hair and light eyes (that perhaps made her resemble their mother slightly), Dorothy, was looking at him too, very bewildered and guarded, almost as if she was expecting something completely different to happen but wasn't sure if she should believe what did happen either. He supposed he didn't exactly fit the idea of a bullying, power-obsessed douchebag faking kindness since he genuinely did care about Sam (and it had to show), but his knuckles were bruised and so was Sammy and he could see why that looked pretty bad.

He sat down when Sam slowly, painstakingly slid further inside the booth.

He turned to Dorothy, shooting his best charming grin at her. "I'm Dean," he introduced himself as a way of greeting. He ruffled Sam's hair. "Thanks for getting this moron to actually eat."

…

Dean had nightmares about Hell and about his own fists and words breaking his little brother down.

And he couldn't tell what sickened him more, what ripped him apart inside more than the other.

He sat at the motel table drinking down a cheap whiskey bottle, thinking of the events of the past year and of everything happening now.

Even though it still hurt to think of it all, he couldn't put his pain above the pain Sammy suffered here. All of it, at  _his_  hands, and Sam never stopped him. Never tried to. Even though he could have. He could have kicked the bastard's ass if he really wanted to the first time he ever laid a hand on him, and he could have packed up his bags and left and never looked back.

But he was still here, and Dean couldn't really understand why.

It was the guilt, he figured. Sammy felt too guilty about things, to the point where he'd be willing to give up anything to make up for it. But this?

This was too much to give up. Too much to take for mistakes he didn't really mean to make, for bad decisions that he could compensate for in a  _million_  other ways but this.

He ruminated about the events with the shapeshifter, and the fact that Sam couldn't even tell that it wasn't really Dean. What did that say? The lines that once separated him from a monster that had his face were blurred away here in this world. Sam, who could pick Dean out from a damn crowd and know in less than a second whether it was him or just something wearing his face, now couldn't see the difference anymore.

But even if he did figure it out somehow, the outcome didn't seem likely to change much. Sam still would have gotten hurt, because this Dean beat him down and left him so vulnerable and weakened that he was incapable of fighting anything too well, incapable of fighting  _him_  too well, even if he decided one day that he had enough.

Sadly, that day seemed too far away, because Sam seemed to loathe himself far more than the douche he still, for whatever reason, called a brother. He could only hope his own Sam still had a greater sense of self-worth than the Sam of this world did.

But his own Sam had seemed so ineffably remorseful as well, so prepared to do anything to redeem himself, that Dean couldn't tell. That didn't have to mean that he would go to the same lengths that this one did, of course, but…

He was too afraid of one day discovering that the way Sam felt here was exactly how his own Sam felt there too, that the extent of his guilt and regret and need for paying penance stretched on the same number of miles as this Sam's did. Even if circumstances were different here, they were still the same people with the same tendencies and idiosyncrasies, which could mean that if Dean suddenly changed in a similar way himself in his own world, he couldn't be sure if his own Sam wouldn't lead himself to the same thought processes that the Sam here reached.

That terrified him more than he could say.

He contemplated the version of him in this world. The fucker was obsessed, running on hatred and Hell-flaming rage. He was obsessed with power and control, with keeping Sammy in check like a dog on a leash, and the  _worst_  fucking thing was that he knew all the soft spots, all the nerves to hit, all the disparaging things to say to keep his brother down, to manipulate him into thinking he deserved every bit of it by using his past against him.

He was paranoid as hell too. It was one thing to watch Sam go out at night and try not to be suspicious of him going out to do questionable things, even after he rationally  _knew_  that he was probably just going out for a walk to get some fresh air, or to some store to get some necessary items, but this crazy son of a bitch kept him chained to fully ensure that he didn't sneak out in the middle of the night, didn't even let him keep his own goddamn cell phone anymore, even though Sam wouldn't do things like that again. Even with his own trust issues, he knew Sam and he definitely knew Sam wouldn't want to do the same deeds that led to so much chaos and anguish and casualties.

It all did hurt, but not enough to make him want to hurt Sammy. Nothing could ever make him want to hurt his own flesh and blood baby brother.

The bathroom door clicked open and Sam limped out, hair dripping wet and a towel around his shoulders. Dean glanced at him only briefly, before he couldn't stand the battered face that he had been seeing all day anymore, and he went back to staring at the table his bottle was on.

"Get some sleep, Sam," he mumbled roughly, and then took another swig of his amber drink straight from the bottle.

He didn't hear any sound, no scruff of giant feet dragging slowly on the carpet or the creak of a bed. He glanced back to find Sam still standing where he last saw him, looking at him in this way that made his heart wrench violently.

"What?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. Sam shook his head quickly and his gaze flitted away.

God _damnit_ , this kid needed to stop with that constant kicked-puppy eyes look or else Dean might fucking die of a heartache. As if it didn't already shrivel him up inside in his own world (at least that Sam used it sparingly compared to this one), that skinny, harrowing, wounded look he was sporting here just made it even worse.

The bed creaked.

"You got the ice packs?" Dean questioned without glancing at him. "Painkillers?"

"Yeah."

"Need anything else?"

"No, thank you."

Dean nodded in acknowledgment of his response and then took another gulp. When he glanced back at Sam a minute or two later, the kid was still sitting up, still looking with that inexplicable, kicked puppy look, but this time at his bottle. There was a sort of defeated resignation in his soft, bruised eyes.

And then Dean wanted to shoot himself.

Because of course.

Of fucking  _course_  Sam would be staring at him like that. Like he was preparing himself for Dean to tear him apart again.

Sam shifted his gaze to his hands in his lap quickly when he noticed Dean watching. His shoulders were slouched, his expression weary and far too accepting than he should be of whatever he was expecting once Dean stopped seeing straight.

Ironically, that made him want to drink even more, to numb the damn ache beginning to fester inside of his chest.

Instead, Dean went to the bathroom and poured all the whiskey down the sink.

…

Dean jolted into wakefulness, his throat raw and his body cold and shaky and sweaty, feeling sick from his stomach to his throat as the images in his dreams continued to play through his mind. There was a boulder of sorrow and remorse suffocating him. There were hands on his shoulders, soft, soothing whispers of a familiar voice in the dark, "It was just a dream, Dean. It's okay… it's okay."

His own hands, curled into stony fists, bearing down on Sam. His fucking belt clutched in his fingers, the sounds of leather meeting flesh, agonized, desperately restrained whimpers and sobs. Smash of shattering glass and echoing cracks of breaking furniture and wan attempts of trying to calm Hellfire rage down as he laid on the ground with arms raised above him protectively, bargains and apologies and whispering words to tranquilize a man no less than a dangerous, violent animal.

" _It's okay, Dean. I-I'll make up f-for it, I promise_."

Horrible, horrible words, hissed and bellowed in a voice that sounded like him but was nothing like him, that he would never even think for once to be true. Insults and names that Dean had never even  _considered_  attributing to his baby brother in his life.

"Dean?" Sam's voice filtered through the horrors that he saw in his sleep running through his mind, horrors that were not mere dreams but had once happened in reality, that were a part of Sammy's everyday life and of his haunting memories.

He caught sight of his brother's wide-eyed worry, alerted gaze darting over his face to examine him. Sam's hands were still on him, still grasping at his shoulders. His own gaze slowly landed on them, on the curled fingers that were the only thing grounding him in this moment, and yet, only making him feel worse. Sam touching him once made him uneasy, before he came here, made the burn of irritation and perhaps even mild repulsion rise in his frozen, deadened chest. Now it made him uneasy in a different way, made his insides burn with shame and self-disgust instead.

How could Sam even bear to come close to him?

Sam seemed to have noticed where Dean's furrowed eyes were stuck, and he completely misinterpreted whatever emotion was playing across Dean's features, because he slowly released him, withdrawing his hands, and he began to stammer out a very unnecessary explanation, "Sorry, I… sorry. Y-you were having a bad dream, and I-I tried to wake you up by my voice but you couldn't hear me and then you st...started screaming at someone to stop, and I couldn't just..." He stopped, mouth working as if he wasn't sure if he should keep talking, and then looked away as if he thought he had already talked more than he should, swallowing hard.

Sam began to stand up slowly and painstakingly the way he did now, using the headboard for support. Dean's hand shot out and grabbed his shirt before he could think about what he was doing. In that moment, all he knew was that he needed to say something to Sam, to… to somehow make up for what the him of this world did to him. To just tell him how fucking  _sorry_  he was that it all ever happened and console him and take away all the terror and sorrow and self-loathing Sam held inside of him.

But Dean had never been good at these kinds of things. So he couldn't.

All he could do was tug at his collar to pull him closer, even as Sam's face began to flood with that panic that he was so tired of seeing, as he began to feebly stutter out an attempt to dissuade whatever potentially violent predicament he was imagining, fingers shooting up to Dean's grip instinctually, his fearful, tremulous voice cracking, "D-Dean, wait—"

He had no goddamn right anymore, did he?

No right to even  _think_  about touching the kid, and he shouldn't be at all after everything that had happened here. He had no fucking right.

But he was tugging him back down to the mattress and taking his damn beaten face in his hands and laying his forehead against his, because he needed to, as selfish as it was, and because he couldn't say what he wanted to say, couldn't get his voice and his brain to work right, and he was willing Sam to just… just  _understand_  what he meant, what he wanted him to know.

How sorry he was.

In his own world, Dean wouldn't have had to. In his own world, Sam would have understood everything he was trying to tell him but couldn't with the simplest gestures, like bringing him his favorite coffee and letting him have first showers and, sometimes, only a single physical contact.

But this Sam was still terrified, still trembling and trying not to, still expecting Dean's fists to ravage on more of his already ravaged body.

He supposed this wasn't anything like the things he would try to apologize for with Iced Lattes and first showers and a hand on the nape of his neck. This was the worst thing he could ever imagine doing to Sam, what he had been afraid of most ever since he crawled out of his grave.

And now he was Sammy's worst fucking nightmare, the thing that scared him most.

Damn it! But Sam could have fought him back, right? Even if he felt guilty about his betrayal and mistakes of the past year, Sammy was smart enough to know that he could make up for everything by using his huge, Einstein brain to find a way to stop the damn apocalypse from ripping everything in this world away instead of—of  _this_.

But in his dreams, Sam always just stood there and took it. He never even fucking  _tried_  to defend himself.

He could have packed up his bags and left, if not that, if he still, inexplicably, didn't want to hurt that son of a bitch. Could have stayed with Bobby. Bobby would have shot his ass full of bullets (if Sam himself couldn't bring himself to, even after everything), even in a wheelchair, before he'd let him touch Sam again.

Where was Bobby in all of this? Did he know about what was happening to a boy he saw as his surrogate youngest? About what a man he saw as his eldest was doing?

Why didn't Sam  _ever fight back_?

He wished he would fight back. Tell him to just fuck off and hit him back and have that quiet sense of self-assuredness he used to have, that would never let any piece of shit ever lay a hand on him and get away with it.

Now some bastard with his own face was torturing Sam and he was just letting him do it.

Dean clenched his jaw against the sorrow building up inside of him, in his eyes.

"D-Dean?" Sam whispered, and he was still trembling slightly, but now he was mostly confused. Dean huffed at the thought that the poor kid was confused a lot these days.

He let go of him gently, pressing him back. "Go back to sleep, kiddo," he murmured, his voice soft and roughened with sleep and something else he tried to clear away in his throat, that burned up to his eyes. He blinked to clear it away, not looking at Sam while he did. "Everything's fine."

Sam was still staring at him, perplexed, but at least in being so, he wasn't as scared anymore.

…

Two weeks have gone by.

And Dean wasn't sure he could do it anymore.

He wasn't sure if he could stay with Sam, wasn't sure if he could keep seeing the face of this world's Dean's—his—failure in this world.

The dreams relaying the occurrences of this world were nearly a regularity, if it wasn't nightmares of Hell instead (sometimes it was both in a single night), and the more he saw, the more he couldn't stand it, couldn't stand  _himself_ , couldn't stand being around Sam knowing every time his brother saw him, he saw a man who had been swinging fists and weapons and belts at him for months.

The more he saw, the more he felt that the lines were blurring until sometimes Dean began to doubt that he didn't have anything to feel guilty about. He couldn't entirely separate himself from him some days because maybe in the end, even if it was another version of him, it was  _him_. Even if in another world with a major circumstantial change, it was him.

The lines were certainly blurring between them.

And if  _he_  wasn't Dean, then Dean sure as hell was becoming  _him_.

Something was stirring inside of him. Hellfire rage. Almost like an awakening beast that was long asleep in hibernation. He couldn't tell when it started, never even noticed until these past couple of days when he had started feeling snippier towards Sam for no reason, even if for the briefest periods. There was something different and strange about it. It didn't entirely feel like the normal kind of irritation. It didn't feel normal at all, especially considering everything that had been happening here. But he thought that if he thought back on it now, he was sure that something had been feeling off since the first day he got here.

It was nowhere near its peak, but he felt it coming. Something was happening to him the longer he stayed here, and he needed to get out of this world before the diseased darkness swallowed him whole, before it turned him into something he wasn't (something no less than a monster).

And that started with him getting the fuck out of here, getting the fuck away from Sammy to somewhere far, far away, where he could never hurt him.

Sam was still sleeping in his bed, and his face was still faded shades of purple and blue, but it was a lot better than it was two weeks ago. His limp had lessened, and moving didn't entirely seem to be a gruelling task anymore to him.

Sam would be okay now, right?

Dean didn't know how rapidly this thing—this darkness growing inside of him—progressed, and he wasn't taking the risk of it being too fast, of him losing himself and doing something he would regret forever. If it grew more quickly than he anticipated, then he might end up hurting Sam too the way this bastard did.

The thought made him sick to his gut.

He left nearly all of his money in Sam's wallet and placed the car keys next to his pillow. The kid definitely needed it more than him, and hopefully sooner rather than later, he'd be in another world anyway.

His bags were packed, consisting of all his clothes and half of the weapons, the other half in Sam's bags. He renewed the kid's first aid kit and gave him enough silver bullets, salt bags, holy water bottles and every other hunting supply he could think of to protect himself. Sam wasn't going to have any trouble from angels due to the sigils in his ribs, but if he ran into one by chance, he knew what to draw with his blood. Everything else he believed Sammy can deal with because he was smart and strong enough to. It wasn't as if he was any safer with Dean than he was without him now.

He left him a note.

_Sammy,_

_I couldn't stay, man. It's for the best. I left you the car and some money and paid the rent for another week if you still wanna rest up._

_I'm sorry for everything, kiddo._

_-Dean_

Dean was standing at the door, bag strap over his shoulder and hand on the doorknob when he heard it.

"So what did it?" And it was so quiet that he barely did.

On the surface, Sam sounded pretty neutral and stoic, but Dean was still a little too good at reading his brother and getting a sense of his deeper emotions. There was carefully concealed hurt and sorrow in the tone, and the guilt of putting it there weighed on Dean's chest like stones.

"What was the last straw?" Sam asked him softly. He heard the sheets rustle and the bed creak as Sam, presumably, slowly sat up.

He swallowed and closed his eyes. He didn't want to leave letting Sam think that it was his fault, that he was the one that did something wrong, because that was the furthest thing from the truth. "This doesn't have anything to do with you, Sam."

"Right. I must have been mistaken then." Sam huffed out a bitter, mirthless, watery laugh that nearly, almost ended on a sob. He didn't sound afraid for the first fucking time since he got here, only hurt and upset. "You've been beating the shit out of me for the past couple of months because you hate me that much." Dean flinched hard, his face draining of blood, his insides spasming with nausea. All this time, in all the horrendous dreams he had had over the past two weeks, Sam had never said it outright. Not once. Not like that. "So what gave me the idea that you were walking out of that door because of me?"

"Sam," Dean started. He turned to face him, wiping his hand down his mouth, but now the kid was already scrambling away on the bed, looking like he was regretting the outburst. And it only broke Dean inside and strengthened his resolve to get the fuck away from Sammy as far as he could.

"I...I'm sorry," he blurted out in mortification, blinking confusedly as if he couldn't understand what came over him. He transitioned so instantly from sounding like someone so bold and blunt (the way he was  _supposed to be_ ) to someone so docile, a word he never thought he would use to characterize his brother with. Sam had always been this strong-willed and autonomous boy, stubborn and rebellious against anyone that tried to control him, which meant their father in particular and even Dean himself at times (although to some extent, he did listen to Dean far more than he did anyone). Now he was so lost and submissive and fucking  _broken_  that Dean didn't know what to do with it. "That was… I d-didn't mean to. I...I just don't think this is a good idea, Dean."

Dean dropped his bag with a loud thud, and it made Sam jerk back. "This isn't a good idea, Sam? Pray tell, why the  _hell_  not? Because from where I'm standing, it's the best fucking option we've got." How could the damn kid think it wasn't after  _everything_? It was pissing him off, because Sam wasn't pissed at him, wasn't fucking celebrating his departure the way he should.

Sam didn't say anything, but he was wearing a conflicted expression on his face, caught between wanting to say something and not wanting to say something that would set him off.

Dean deflated, feeling fatigue set into his bones at the sight of that fear and hesitance again. It made no damn sense. Nothing was a reason for Sam to want him around willingly.

He waited for a response, but none came. So he bent down to haul his bag up again and turned back around.

"Why…" Sam's voice broke, and he was breathing somewhat shallowly. "Why are you leaving?"

_Because you look at me like I'm a ticking time bomb._

_Because you couldn't tell the difference between me and a monster._

_Because I'm turning into that same monster now, Sammy, and I'm not gonna let that monster hurt you ever again._

"I  _am_  sorry, Sammy," was all that managed to come out, so quiet that he wasn't sure if Sam even heard him, tilting his face ever so slightly towards him. Three words that were the most underwhelming words he could say, that would never make up for the sickening things he had done in this world to the kid he should have loved most. "For everything."

He turned the doorknob, tugged the door open with a creak and walked out of Sammy's life.

Hopefully for good.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! So I actually wanted to post this last week, but I lost internet before I could post it. Now I got it back so I edited it today and decided to publish it now. I hope that you enjoy it! If you have a moment, let me know what you thought of the chapter! What do you think of this new...twist, I suppose is the word?
> 
> I also realized too late that I should have informed in the previous chapter that the cliffhanger of the last chapter will not be dealt with in this one, but rather the next, so I am so, so very sorry to all those who may have been really looking forward to knowing how that will continue in this chapter. I promise in the next chapter, it will pick up from there, and hopefully I can edit it and get it up by the next week rather than the next next, but I also have tests and assignment deadlines coming up which might get in the way.


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

**Real Universe**

_Two weeks earlier_

 

"Bobby!" Sam called out. "Bobby! Dean's awake!"

Sam glanced back at Dean, grinning elatedly, his hands gripping Dean's biceps.

And then it died away.

Sam frowned, forehead scrunching together with bewilderment. Dean's eyes were different as they glowered at him. They were still the green he knew, but they were full of something he had never seen in his brother, something that didn't fit on his features quite right. The rush of happiness in his body was suddenly dampened, his heart dropping to his gut.

His eyes were...

They were darkened with something far beyond rage and loathing, lines of a snarl the only expression breaking through the cold and dead look on his face. It sent chills down Sam's spine.

This wasn't his brother.

Sam released hold of him and began to back away, heartbeats beginning to race as his insides spasmed with icy trepidation. But Dean—the thing—shot up and gripped his hand painfully hard, taking advantage of his momentary weakness of confoundment and fear, and twisted it in one swift motion before Sam could even begin to  _think_ about retreating his arm defensively. The crack resounded throughout the room, raising a gritted cry from him as sharp, excruciating pain fired down through his arm and down to the tips of his fingers.

In that moment, Bobby wheeled in fast and, prepared and wary of any positive occurrences (for good reason, Sam realized now) as always, had had the quick thinking to carry a rock-salt gun with him. He had never been more grateful for his surrogate father's typical, conditioned pessimism. "What the hell is going on here?!"

"Bobby, it's not him," Sam choked out warningly, teeth clenched against the waves of pain shooting up his arm, tingles of numbness settling into the tips of his fingers. His wrist was definitely sprained, and he had had enough of these injuries to know this was a second grade sprain, which meant it would need a splint or a cast. It was beginning to display signs of discoloration and swelling already, but at least they knew it didn't possess anything more than human strength, albeit it was human strength that was fueled by a boundless, deep rage that Sam could descry deep beneath his brother's green eyes. It didn't show any indications of having any sort of supernatural traits yet either.

But this  _couldn't_  be Dean.

Bobby aimed the gun at the creature. "Get the hell away from him now, you stupid son of a bitch!" he growled threateningly.

"I told you never to fucking touch me," it hissed, and it seemed to barely heed Bobby's warning, or if it did, it gave no indication of acknowledging it, its eyes blazing with fury and abhorrence and disgust. Its grasp began to tighten around his sprained wrist, causing Sam to clench his jaw further against the pain. "It's your fault you didn't listen."

Bobby fired the rocksalt shotgun at its chest, and it released its hold on Sam's wrist instantly as it fell back with a pained, choked groan. Sam pushed himself to focus through the gradually fading dredges of agony, long enough to catch the gun Bobby threw over to him with his good hand, the other cradled to his chest, and knock the weapon's rear hard into the thing's head. It went down like a rag doll, jerking before its eyes rolled into the back of its head.

"It ain't stayin' down long," Bobby reminded, staring at the limp, unconscious body. "Get the ropes. We'll tie it up, and then I'll take a look at that hand of yours."

 

**…**

 

Sam watched the unconscious creature contemplatively, trapped in ropes to a chair. There was a visible goosebump on the creature's temple. Its chest was bleeding, spots of red seeping through his brother's skin.

This wasn't exactly the most secure and effective way to hold it captive, but currently, there wasn't any way to transfer the creature down to the panic room, which was the best place to keep it trapped since it wasn't anything that the wards would affect anyway. Bobby couldn't go downstairs due to being confined to a wheelchair, and Sam couldn't carry a one hundred and eighty pound body down two flights of stairs with only one usable hand. Cas wasn't picking up the phone, possibly busy and engrossed in his search for God, so he couldn't come and use his angelic mojo to teleport the thing down.

However, for now it would have to do. They would take all the precautions, keep all the doors locked, weapons hidden away and out of the creature's reach should it escape, and be on the ready. Hopefully by then, Cas would have already shown up.

There were several things that they needed to figure out about the entire situation at hand.

Firstly, what was it that took his brother's body?

Secondly, what and who was playing this twisted game with them?

Thirdly, what was happening in the other world? Where was it that Dean was sent to? Was that where this monster originated from?

It began to stir, groaning in pain from the headache it most likely had. It seemed far too human, even if a very twisted and aggressive one at that. Its head lolled back, forehead scrunching together in its struggle to awaken as well as in pain from its injuries. After a moment, its eyes finally opened slightly, half-mast gaze absorbing the surroundings. It immediately sobered and straightened up rigidly, gaze roaming around on alert.

"Morning, sunshine," Sam said with a huff, a hint of snark in his tone.

The creature's eyes shot to him, narrowing furiously into a glare. It was only after a moment that the expression fell into something blank, a realization dawning on its face.

"You're not Sam," the creature scoffed out the statement. "You're not entirely pathetic. Not banged up either. So what the hell are you?"

"I am Sam," he answered, tilting his head as mild confusion flashed through him. Something didn't seem right about those words. Why did it think he wasn't Sam? What did that matter to it? Why did it expect him to be banged up? Not much room currently to think about anything else besides obtaining answers, he stored it away to ponder on later. He stood up from his chair and slowly began to circle around him. "The question is, what the hell are  _you_?"

It didn't look at him, but when he reached behind it, its head turned warily. Sam leaned in, a strategy to further intimidate and agitate by being close, yet at an angle from where he couldn't be seen.

"Holy water and salt don't work on you. Neither does iron. So this is not a demon or a ghost possession," Sam explained. "Then I tried the demon-killing knife, which should work on angels too, but that didn't do anything either. You can't be anything else we know of, because that's still my brother's actual body. So what are you?"

The thing smirked, in a way so deeply unlike his own Dean that it startled him slightly.

"I'm what's going to make you wish you were dead once I get out of these ropes."

He had heard threats like that a million times before, even by monsters wearing Dean's face, and it always left him unfazed.

Yet there was something ineffably disturbing and dark about this one's very air.

 

**…**

 

"Cas told me that Dean's consciousness has been transferred to another body, possibly even another world," Sam said, picking at the edges of the cast on his sprained wrist. "Do you… do you think this could be Dean, but from that other world that  _our_ Dean went to? Like a—a body swap or a consciousness exchange or something? I mean, his consciousness would have to go somewhere too, right?"

"You ain't wrong, boy," Bobby conceded. "But we can't be sure of that either. It's nothin' more than theory."

"It's the only thing that makes sense," Sam argued. All the tests he could think of checked out, and he had no supernatural powers at all. None that he'd shown of so far, at least. His physical strength was merely at human level. "He's as human as he can be, but he just acts  _nothing_  like the Dean we know. He also didn't think I was me. Said I wasn't as 'pathetic' and banged up." Bobby seemed to have the same idea about the implications behind those words, judging by the line between his eyebrows, a disturbed expression on his face.

They both glance back at the man who was supposedly Dean's psychopathic and twisted variation from an alternate universe. He was staring at them, eyes colder and deader than a corpse. It was creepy as hell. Sam wondered, supposedly if his theory  _was_  true, what could have turned this Dean into this monstrous, violent person that he was. Was he born like this? Was it something gone wrong in his brain in the beginning of his life, an inherent loose screw that made him this way? Or did something change him throughout his life? Some major, circumstantial difference between their two worlds that screwed him up in a way he could never imagine his own Dean to be?

Bobby looked back at Sam. "Yeah… the only thing unhuman about him is...well, everything besides having any supernatural qualities."

Sam snorted. In all honesty, that sounded just about right. He straightened to his feet from where he was leaning against the wall and walked towards Dean, Bobby following on his wheels behind him. The abyss-like glare followed him in particular, which seemed to indicate that Dean's enmity and vitriol was mostly directed towards him.

Could it be that it was something Sam did?

The things he had already done here?

Could Sam be the reason for that major, circumstantial difference between their two worlds?

"We think you've switched worlds with our Dean," Sam stated as he stopped in front of him. "Cas told us that our Dean's consciousness has been taken to another universe. We think you're from that universe he's been taken to."

Dean tilted his head, hostility in his every movement. "You think that makes a difference?" he sneered, smirking in that way again that made Sam's skin crawl. "You're the same monster that I shoulda put down as soon as I saw blood all over its face, the same disgusting, demon-screwing filth that he was."

Sam flinched before he could suppress the impulse to, heart jolting with pain like a bullet had just been fired between his ribs, and he knew it would stay wedged for a while now. Bobby must have noticed his reaction, because he placed a consoling hand on his arm.

"And you know something?" Dean smiled coldly, his green eyes just as frigid. "In every parallel godforsaken universe out there, that's all you'll ever be."

 

**…**

 

Sam set down the first aid kit on the ground, kneeling down before Dean. He felt the crevassed gaze follow him, burning holes into his soul. The permanently etched snarl, full of loathing, curled at his mouth.

He reached out with his non-sprained hand for Dean's overshirt to pull it off his shoulders, but his brother jerked his shoulder away, spitting out threats in a voice dripping with acid, "You try that, and I'll make sure to chop both your hands off when I'm loose." Sam felt the skin on his hands grow heavy again with his impurity and the weight of his sins, the way it did every time Dean showed any indication of not wanting to be touched by him. This one seemed to be particularly grossed out by him, so much so that he got the feeling the threat wasn't entirely an empty one.

"Your wounds could get infected," Sam reminded him. He reached out again. "It's best if you let me help you."

"Keep your filthy hands off of me."

Sam looked away, his heart shriveling at the sheer hatred and disgust in Dean's tone. He exhaled nasally and composed himself after a moment, glancing back at him. "I'll call Bobby over."

He pushed himself to his feet, picking up the first aid kit. He turned around and began to exit the library.

"An old bastard in a wheelchair and a worthless freak with a gimp hand," Dean drawled out, somber amusement in his tone. "You really think you'll be able to keep me here when I'm free? You think you'll be able to stop me from putting you both down like sick dogs?" Hearing Dean talk like that made Sam sick to the chest. This wasn't his brother. This didn't sound anything like the Dean they knew.

He didn't look back at him.

"We know we will," Sam answered, sure and convicted.

With that, he walked out.

 

**…**

 

Sam leaned back in the chair, running his hands over his hair. There was a book open on his lap about alternate universes authored by a well-known former hunter in the community. So far, he hadn't found anything of use to them. His eyes were dry and sticky from the lack of blinking, and also begging to close down from the lack of sleep for nearly twenty-four hours.

The book was slid out of his lap. He barely noticed the sounds of wheels moving across the room, but Bobby was suddenly there, taking the book from him and closing it. Sam forgot to note the page number, and before he could protest, Bobby was admonishing him, "Not a word, boy. You're going up to the guest room upstairs and getting some shut-eye. That's that."

"Just a few more pages, Bobby, and then I'll go," Sam bargained. "I promise."

"Fine," Bobby begrudgingly accepted. "If I come back in ten minutes and see you here, then legs or no legs, I'm kickin' your ass, ya hear me?"

Sam laughed lightly. "Clear as crystal."

 

**…**

 

Sam's eyes flew open to a heavy, suffocating weight over his face. His vision was full of darkness as he heaved and gasped heavily, thrashing and trying to shove his arms with all of his might against the intrusive object cutting off his airways. When that didn't work, he reached further behind for the source, his fingers finding skin and flesh. He gripped it tightly, trying to remove it, but the arm wouldn't budge. The lack of oxygen was beginning to make him light-headed and weak. He kicked out as hard as he possibly could at wherever, hurling all of his energy into it.

His feet connected with something, likely to be an abdomen, and an angry, pained grunt emanated from the perpetrator. The weight lifted slightly for a brief time. Sam felt his legs being trapped down, although with much effort and difficulty due to his constant struggling. He took the moment of weakness and distraction and, now having an idea of the bodily position of the offender, aimed higher with his fisted, uninjured hand, this time for the throat. He missed, but his attacker's grip loosened in trying to dodge the attack.

The knife under his pillow was undoubtedly removed, but Sam then remembered his pocket knife in his drawers, fortunately on the side of his non-sprained wrist. His lungs were tight and aching, wheezing desperately for air he couldn't receive. There were black spots dancing in his vision. His hand scrambled frantically towards the night drawers, searching for the handle.

"Oh no you fucking don't," the familiar voice hissed.

Dean.

Fuck. He must have gotten out of the ropes somehow, even though Sam had checked and removed all of the hiding places he knew on his body for anything that could help him escape, that could cut into the thick ropes. Either he must have missed something, or Dean found some other way to free himself. Even so, he kept all the weapons (besides a few kept close to Bobby and himself) and lockpicks hidden away and locked all the doors. Kicking them in, which would have to be numerous times due to the strength of their locks, should have been difficult with the wounds on Dean's lower chest. He doubted that was what Dean had done, however, because they would have heard the noises.

He supposed Dean had always been far too smart and innovative. In a time like this, Sam really wished he wasn't.

Dean let go of the pillow, hurling it away. Sam hungrily gasped in all the air he could for the brief moment, coughs wracking his body, hands shaking. Dean grabbed his collar, hauled him up and slammed him hard against the headboard, knocking all the air right out of his lungs again and causing his head to spin. "You thought you could keep me tied up?" he snarled into his face, one hand shooting up to clutch a handful of his hair tightly, the one wrapping painfully around his sprained wrist, emitting a gritted cry of pain from him. "Something like  _you_?"

"D-Dea—" Sam wheezed out, a wave of vertigo from the shortage of oxygen and agony making him lose coordination as he began to loll away. He was too far from the drawers now, where his only saving grace in this situation resided.

And then sharp pain exploded across his jaw, head snapping to the side. Sam groaned, blinking hard, his wrist still hurting from the pressure exerted on it. The same pain burst across his face again. His body was still weakened and trying to recover from nearly being strangled to death, but he needed to  _move_  if he was going to get out alive. There was no way he could lay there and just let it all happen.

Sam went straight for his injured chest. Dean dodged it successfully, whacking it back against the headboard. Dean re-assigned his grip to his casted wrist, tightening it until Sam went nearly breathless from the agony again, teeth grinding together as he choked down the scream through it. He breathed hard, sweating beading on his skin, feeling cold and dizzy.

"You, I'm going to kill, slowly and painfully. The old man down there? I'll give him a quick, merciful one. I mean, I don't have much against him." Dean smirked, tilting his head, still pinning his legs down and his arms against the headboard. "He just kinda pisses me off. Especially when he tried to shoot my head off back in my world. And for what? Some sick demon-fucker like you?"

Sam guessed this Dean wasn't all that different from the movie villains his own Dean criticized, the ones that loved to yap before they tried to murder or incapacitate someone. He headbutted him hard when he was close enough, giving it all.

That blindsided him, catching him off guard. He groaned, jaw set, as he covered his bleeding nose. Sam slammed his feet against his rock-salted chest hard, throwing him back and eliciting a grinded scream from him, and swiftly flipped to open the drawers, swiping the small knife off from it.

Dean recuperated far too quickly, grabbing Sam's legs in an attempt to drag him away. Sam flipped abruptly and hurled his armed hand as rapidly and as hard as he could down on his opponent's thigh. Dean yelled angrily, face contorting with anguish. Sam ripped it out and stabbed him into the flesh of his shoulder, tearing out another clenched scream, "Fucking piece of shit!"

Sam rolled off the bed, dropping to the floor, gasping. He lifted himself up and half-staggered and half-ran to his bag, grabbed the sleep-inducing injection he got a couple of hours ago as a precaution for a prospect exactly like this.

Dean was glaring at him, full of blazing abhorrence that still put a dull ache on Sam's chest. He was gripping his thigh and shoulder, still breathing heavily from the agony. "Don't you fucking dare," he warned furiously, a note of threat in the tone of his voice, but he had already lost the fight.

Sam jabbed it into the side of his neck.

 

**...**

**Alternate Universe**

_Present_

Sam felt empty.

Just empty.

Dean was gone, and he had had no fight left in him to stop him, the internal exhaustion and terror (terror most of all, as ashamed as he felt about it) choking all of his arguments down his throat. Some part of him knew he should naturally feel something about not having to worry about any further pain at the hands of someone he could never dare fight (hurt) ever again, but his heart was blocked to even the mildest emotions of relief.

To anything other than pure and utter hollowness and fatigue.

Sam swore off hunting because sometimes he still felt the throb of craving something so vile and disgusting that it made him sick of himself. Maybe Dean had always had a point there.

He was still bruised and weary, and much of his skills that were required for hunting must have rusted by now to some extent. He was sure that his sedentary body wasn't too suitable for the job anymore, and his father taught him that if you're not fit, then you're not fit for hunting.

But those were unimportant. Those were things he could build back up one day.

The real reason was that he didn't trust himself to go out there and not make things worse in the world instead by trying to make them better, the way Dean kept saying he would.

The way he already had.

So he said his goodbyes to Dorothy, whose lips curled into a watery smile for someone so unworthy of her bittersweet tears, hugged him one last time and kissed his cheek in a way that made him miss a mother he didn't remember getting cheek kisses from.

And then he drove to wherever in a car that still held dark shadows as well as memories of his brother, that smelled more like putrid alcohol now than the faint scent of leather and gunpowder that had permeated the air once. Still held echoes of a flat, deadened voice talking impersonally about work, of harsh insults and belittling quips and taunting jibes at his past instead of laughter and harmless teasing and dumb sibling fights about the best comical characters.

He ended up in Garber, Oklahoma and got himself a job as a bus boy at a bar, serving drinks and mopping floors and wiping counters and tables. It helped get his mind off of everything that he didn't want to think about, things like the scent of sulfuric blood and his hands wrapped around his brother's throat in a hotel room and glowing towers of ominous light.

Things like heavy blows raining down on him and tasting blood in his mouth, like crude words that drifted across his thoughts nearly all day long and felt like knives stuck in his chest, the glint of violence and hostility in green eyes that he had tried to quell by offering himself to let it out on.

Things like Dean packing up his bags and leaving, because he had finally had enough of having Sam around, because all Sam did was make him suffer even when he tried so fucking hard not to make him angry, not to make things _worse_. He did everything he could to not screw up at the little things, because he had already screwed up in all the big ways now and doing the little things better was all that was left, was the only way to show Dean that he wasn't all bad, that he wasn't entirely a fuck-up.

He kept falling back to this idea that maybe if he could make Dean believe that, he would believe it himself too.

But Dean was gone, so he supposed he didn't do a lot of right with those little things either.

He supposed nothing he could ever do would have changed the way Dean saw him, not with that darkness that he carried back from Hell inside of him.

Not with the things Sam had done.

He couldn't really figure out what was more pathetic, him wishing that Dean was still the Dean that loved him before everything became so horrible and dark, even though he lost all right, all worth, to have him back.

Or him wanting Dean back even as he was now, with all the blood and sorrow and anguish that came with him, because at least that had meant that Sam still had enough worth for Dean to keep around with him.

At the bar, he had a nice co-worker named Lindsey, who knew him by the name Keith instead, who looked at him somewhat warily at times because of the bruises on him.

"You're not secretly Batman, are you, Keith?" she had joked the first time she felt comfortable enough with him to point it out.

Sam had forced a smile and said, in a half-hearted attempt to reciprocate the friendly banter, "You got me. Was it that obvious?"

As much as he tried to sound normal, he saw her grin wear off slightly. Not quite in a disturbed way at his strange, unfeeling tone (or at least he hoped), but something else he couldn't quite bring himself to look at long enough to see, his gaze darting away.

When a glass bottle of whiskey fell and shattered to the tiles of the floor, he jolted like he was shot, his gut clenching with terror and his heart beginning to speed as he frantically glanced around for the danger, and took too long to compose himself when his mind finally caught up and realized that nobody was hurling whiskey bottles to the ground because they were hammered out of their minds and pissed at him.

She never tried to point them out again

 

…

 

That night, he dreamt of Jessica after many months. She took his hand in hers and told him she missed him, and Sam ached inside at the sight of her beautiful face.

And then she told him she was dead because he was in her life. And then she told him that there was no point in trying to hide himself away because his past would catch up to him, that people closest to him were going to die again, that he would always end up making things worse.

He tried to tell her he wouldn't. Not this time. He wouldn't make the same mistakes again, because he knew what he wouldn't ever do again. This time, things would be different.

"Same song, different verse," she said, in that sweet, gentle voice that he often craved to hear, even as the words felt anything but. "Things are never gonna change with you. Ever."

 

**…**

Lindsey asked him if he played darts. She eventually insisted on a deal that if she won, he would have to buy her dinner and tell him his life story. Sam agreed and threw all three of his darts dead-center on the board.

"Now...with..." The muffled words filtered into Sam's ears.

"Very mysterioso," he vaguely heard Lindsey say. "I like it."

But Sam's attention was caught by the TV hung up on the wall. The news anchor on the screen named John was talking about spring hails, lightning strikes and fire. They were showing media footages of what was happening to the world, all of it happening because of _him_.

"—the town of Tully? Tonight, John. Locals say that what started as a torrential hailstorm late this afternoon suddenly turned to massive lightning strikes that triggered the fires now consuming more than twenty acres here along the Route 17 corridor. County officials are advising all Tully residents to prepare for what could become mandatory evacuations."

The bartender turned the TV off and commented, "Damn, is it me or does it seem like the world's ending?"

The burning shame flooded through the abyss inside of him.

 

**...**

 

" _Kid, it's damn good to hear your voice_ ," Bobby's whiskey-gruff voice came through on the other line, and he sounded genuinely uplifted and relieved. Sam felt something loosen its grip around his lungs. It had been a long time, and he supposed the way they had left his house the last time he and Dean ever went there had, no doubt, left Bobby worried. Sam hadn't had a cellphone in the last couple of months until Dean got him one a week before he left. He still couldn't understand why he did. The best reason he could come up with had been to keep track of him when he wasn't entirely on a leash anymore.

Sam felt good too at the sound of his voice. "Yeah, me too," he replied. He smiled slightly, and it was the first real one he had in a long time.

" _I've been sick with worry since you left, to tell you the truth,_ " he admitted, and it was a testament as to how much he really had been, because Bobby never said things like that. Bobby said things like,  _don't die or I'll kill you myself_  or  _you damn idgits trying to give me a heart attack_  or  _you two sons of bitches are gonna be the death of me_. He never said,  _I've been sick with worry_. " _The way that boy has turned into a monster… if I had my legs, boy, I never woulda let him take you away like that that night._ "

"I chose to go with him too, Bobby," Sam told him, mouth twisting into a remorseful half-smile. He never wanted Bobby to feel like that all these months, like he was responsible for stopping his brother. It wasn't as if he could have anyway. The burden of what Dean had become fell on him (and how he had failed, he thought to himself contemptibly). "That was in no way your fault. You couldn't have stopped me."

Bobby stayed silent. And then said, " _Yeah… that's the part I never got, you know. And I was pissed at you for a long time for being such a goddamn idgit_."

"I had to do it," he said softly.

" _You didn't_ ," Bobby countered, sounded slightly breathless with something Sam had never heard in his voice. He didn't think he ever realized the toll it all had on Bobby. " _You coulda let me shoot him with that shotgun where it don't kill. Find a way to get that disease outta him_."

"There's no cure, Bobby," Sam told him, certain as he could be. It was an entirely unique case, after all. Not a lot of people in this world crawled out of hell still human, came back with such darkening effects on a mind and soul, so there wasn't a lot to find on it out there that would aid them in any way. Human souls in hell that transformed into demons due to severe torture were a similar case, and Sam had tried to use that to search for a cure before he discovered that there were none for them either. In the end, he asked Cas, who confirmed what he already knew. Powers of a higher being such as an archangel, perhaps, would certainly fix it, but it wasn't as if any such creatures had any motives to. "I asked Cas. He was sure of that."

" _It was at least worth a goddamn try to find another way, kid_."

"There was no other way."

" _So you go with him and you let him use you as a punching bag_?" Bobby sounded angry, but Sam knew he was just hurting. It was the same pain he heard brimming in his quivering voice the day he saw Dean's fists diving into him over and over with his own eyes. " _Why, boy_?"

"He needed it. I deserved it," Sam replied as if it was that simple, and it was.

Bobby didn't say anything for a long while. When he spoke again, it was in a voice that was a little too forced and a little less than steady, " _That ain't true, boy_ ," he said, his tone weighed with carefully controlled emotion. " _Not in the least. So get that bullcrap notion out of that thick head of yours before I whack it out of you_."

 

**...**

 

Sam told Bobby about Dean leaving, and about how different he seemed in the days before he did. He told him about Dean apologizing for everything before he left, about how he gave his car keys to him.

"I try not to think about it too much, you know?" And then Sam scoffed derisively at himself, because he knew he ended up thinking too much about it anyway. These past two weeks, Dean had done a lot of things that he used to do before he changed, before Hell and Sam's bad decisions ruined it all. He thought of every gentle touch, every concerned word, every caring order given for the sake of his own well-being, the kind gestures and the occasional innocent (even if forced) teasing with no underlying taunt (sometimes he found them, but he couldn't entirely tell if it was just him or not) over and over, despite his wariness and disbelief of its genuineness. "I mean… it's happened before. H-him pretending to… I never got the point of it. I don't know. Maybe it was just some kind of a sick entertainment to him back then. But Bobby, it was different.  _This_  was different."

Bobby sighed, like he already knew where Sam was going, but asked anyway, " _What you tryin' to say, boy? Spit it out_."

Sam swallowed, brows furrowing together as he looked down at his palm on his lap, eyes tracing absent-mindedly over a jagged, glass shard scar. "I-I don't know. I just… I just wonder sometimes if it was… real, this time… you know? Like maybe… maybe, somehow, he was really coming back this time."

" _That ain't possible, kid. You know that better than anyone._ "

"But maybe something took it out of him. I-I mean,  _that_  could happen, right?" Sam told him hurriedly, heard himself huff out a laugh in this desperate, pathetically hopeful way. "He gave me his car, Bobby. His  _car_. He was acting almost  _exactly_  the way he used to before I…"

" _I think he stopped caring about that car when he stopped caring about you, son_ ," Bobby told him, his gruff voice soft in a way it had never been, but the words still stabbed him in the chest like a knife. " _And I don't think anything that powerful gives enough of a damn about us to help us like that_."

Sam went back to visually tracing the scar, trapping his bottom lip between his teeth as the sorrow and disappointment made his heart drop heavily in his chest.

Bobby wasn't wrong.

In all these months, Dean had never said or done anything to indicate he felt anything for that car anymore, once nothing less than a home to them. There wasn't anyone or anything out there, no supernatural being and certainly not one with powers as strong as that, that they meant anything to. If there was a catch, then nobody had shown up to tell them about it yet. Until then, there was no reason to believe there was any external force involved.

" _I don't know what's making him act like that, boy. I can't give ya an answer for that_ ," Bobby told him, something of a rueful grimace in his voice. " _I just know that it ain't real, and I know you really want it to be, so you're tryin' to find a reason to believe it. My two cents? Don't trust in it, 'cause somethin' like that won't ever go away on its own_."

He gave a small nod, jerky and tentative, even though he knew Bobby couldn't see it. Perhaps it was more to himself than anything.

He had already known what Bobby was telling him now, tried to tell himself that too whenever he began to fall for all those mind tricks, but he guessed he just couldn't fucking stop wanting to fool himself into believing his irrational hopes. He felt his throat clog with emotion, jaw clenching tight to control his quivering chin, and his features twitched into a doleful frown to stop it from crumpling.

He didn't say anything for a while, staring down at his lap. Swallowed down the hard lump that was making his throat ache as he pinched at his burning eyes. He only spoke when he was sure he could without his voice cracking. "Yeah," he finally said, sniffed slightly. If Bobby noticed, he thankfully didn't saything. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

And then he told him about the revelation omens. Bobby promised to send a couple of hunters to look into it.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: major spoilers for 5x03 ahead
> 
> Disclaimer: several scenes in this chapter are taken directly from the show. All credits to where it is due

**Alternate Universe**

 

The hunters showed up at the bar the next day and almost blew his cover in front of Lindsay, calling him Sam instead of Keith. He remembered them to be friends of his father; Tim, Reggie and Steve.

Sam brought them all beers, placing them in front of them on the table, and took an empty seat amongst the three hunters.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to bust you back there," Tim said gruffly.

"No, it's all right," he waved off easily. "So what's up?"

"Bobby called," the hunter continued.

"And?"

"You were right. Major demon block party going on."

Sam frowned. "But why? What are they up to?"

"Don't know yet," Steve answered.

"Bobby told us you were off-limits, right?" Reggie inquired.

"Yeah, that's right," Sam replied.

"That's fine in theory and all," Tim piped up. "But we really could use all hands on deck here."

"I know you could. But I can't. I'm sorry."

"Why not?" Steve pressed.

"It's personal."

"Look, man, what baggage is so heavy it can't be stowed away for the freaking apocalypse?" Tim questioned.

Sam swore to himself he would never go back, would never risk wrecking any further havoc on the world than he already did. It seemed cowardly at times to think about, sitting back and leaving it to others to clean up his spilled milk, but then he thought of how hard he tried to save the world, and how hard he believed himself to be in the right, so arrogant and self-righteous, and turned into such a vile and disgusting monster in doing so. Became the same freak that Azazel wanted him to be, sucking down demon blood and power like there was nothing sickening about it, like he was still a good person trying to do good in this world.

He never was.

Sometimes he couldn't tell if his intentions had ever been in the world's best interests, ever for Dean, or if he had only been too drunk on power to want to give it up. Dean had told him once that he fucked up the world because he just wanted to feed the junkie in him, and he had tried to convince himself that that wasn't true, lying in the dark of the night with burning-hot bruises on his body as he thought of those words over and over.

But he had been so far gone, so absorbed in his addiction that he couldn't be sure if that wasn't all it ever was. Maybe it had started off with his heart in the right place, when he was lost in his grief and powerlessness that he was willing to do anything to make things better, but somewhere along the way, maybe that pull of his addiction, the throbbing crave, became the reason that he kept going down the dark path he did. Maybe that was why he hadn't listened to his brother, why he had never understood what Dean had been trying to tell him all that time.

"Like I said—" Sam began.

Reggie cut him off, "Yeah, you're sorry. Heard it the first time."

"Suit yourself. More for us then, right?" Tim said, shrugging.

Sam gave a nod. "Good luck."

"But hey. Beers are on you when we get back."

"You bet," he replied agreeably.

When they left, Lindsey came up to him.

"So your parents were drunk when they named you and you shoot Bambi?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It's a long story," Sam dismissed.

"That is it. Enough with the kung fu wandering the earth thing. I'm gonna buy you dinner and we're gonna talk."

"Lindsey, I can't—" Sam began to protest.

"No," Lindsey insisted stubbornly. "The only way to avoid bloodshed is to say yes."

**…**

They come back two instead of three, grief and loss in their eyes.

Sam was wiping down the table when he heard the door open, bell chiming to bring attention to a new customer. It was night time, past the bar's opening hours. The sign on the glass door was flipped to 'Closed' towards the outside.

"Bar's closed," Sam called out to the new customer.

When he turned to look, it was Tim.

He didn't look too good, blood and grime all over him.

"Hey," Sam said, turning around completely to face him.

"Something you wanna tell me, Sam?" Tim's gaze was down at the floor as he spoke, hand tangled with his other.

He frowned, tilting his head warily. "What? No."

"You sure about that?" Tim pushed, now looking up at him. There was something off about his expression towards Sam, something that wasn't there before.

"I—I don't know—" It was then that Sam realized that Tim was alone, and he began to worry. "jeez, are you okay? Where are Reggie and Steve?"

"Oh, Steve's good," he told him, a note of sarcasm in his tone, turning away as he rubbed his chin. He faced him again. "His, uh… his guts are lying roadside outside the Hawley Five and Dime."

Sam's chest clenched with sympathy. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry don't cut it, Sam."

"What do you want me to say?" he asked, slightly taken aback. His forehead was scrunched in confusion.

"The truth."

Sam remained silent. So they knew.

They knew about the things he had done.

"Okay, fine," Tim said, stepping forward. "Let me give you some of my own, then. We go into town, we catch ourselves a demon, we get jumped by ten more. Steve bought it."

"I'm sorry," Sam repeated, his face schooled.

"Saying it twice don't make it so, Sam." There was grief in his grim eyes. Steve's death… that was on Sam too. "You see, this demon… he, uh... he told us things. Crazy things. Things about you, Sam."

"Demons lie," he responded guardedly.

"Yeah?" Tim asked, raising his eyebrows. Sam nodded, his mouth tightening. As expected, he didn't buy it. "I'm gonna ask you one last time. The truth. Now." He flinched slightly.

Then the door chimed open, and in walked Reggie with Lindsey, a knife against her throat. She cried out as he shoved her forward into the bar.

Sam's body flooded with fear. "Lindsey!"

Reggie manhandled her to a halt. Her heavy breaths trembled, her head as far from the knife as possible. She was staring at Sam as she demanded, her voice breaking, "What's going on?"

Sam held his hands up in a placating manner. "Just take it easy, okay? Put the knife down."

Tim looked back at Reggie and nodded at him. Reggie pushed her forward to reach the bar, retreated the knife from her and slowly placed it down on the counter. There was mild relief abating the fear in Lindsey's expression once the weapon was away, her body folding over slightly from the drainage of tension, before Reggie forcefully readjusted her to stand upright again.

"It's true," Sam confessed. "It's all true… what the demon said."

"Keep going," Tim pressed.

"Why?" he asked, his expression controlled. "Are you gonna hate me any less? Am I gonna hate myself any less? What do you want?"

"I want to hear you say it."

Sam didn't say anything for a moment, maintaining his eye-contact. His features twisted slightly with pain and guilt. "I did it. I started the apocalypse."

Tim looked at him for a long moment before he looked away, nodding. He scoffed, rubbing his chin.

And then he slowly reached into his pocket and took out a vial of red liquid. Sam already knew what it was, terror seizing his heart before it began to race rapidly, eyes enlarging as they stared at the small bottle. He could smell it all the way from here, even as he questioned tremulously, "What is that?"

"What do you think it is? It's go juice, Sammy boy." Tim flipped the vial in his hand.

Sam shifted on his feet, stepping back slightly. His breathing was growing fast, chest jouncing high. "Get that away from me," he demanded.

"Away from you?" Tim asked as he walked closer, eyebrows lifted. Sam raised his chin in defiance, even as the fear and panic coiled around his ribs, making his lungs tight. He retreated back another step. "No, this is for you. Damn if that demon wasn't right as rain." The hunter came to a stop and shrugged. "Down the hatch, son."

"You're insane," Sam snarled out through grinded teeth. There was anger burning through his veins.

Anger he hadn't felt for himself in a long time.

"Here's what's gonna happen," Tim began. Sam heard Lindsey whimper, metal chains clanging. His apprehensive, angered gaze snapped over to her; Reggie was pushing her around, chaining her wrist. "You're gonna drink this, Hulk out, and you're gonna waste every one of the demon scum that killed my best friend."

He nodded his chin towards Lindsey. "Or she dies."

"You wouldn't do that," Sam said, heart still pounding and his breaths quick. They were supposed to be hunters, were supposed to save innocent lives, not take them.

"It's funny how watching your best friend die changes that."

They both corner him. Sam withdrew a step, his body tense and defensive.

"Come on. You know you want it, Sam," Tim tried to coerce, a note of mockery in his tone. "Just reach out and take it."

It wasn't too hard to get him down.

As hard as Sam fought, it took far less time to tackle and pin him down to the ground than he wished it did. It was almost shameful and disappointing. Surely it would have been if Dean or their father had seen it.

His body throbbed and ached, but the pain of it was pushed to the background in the face of what was about to happen to him, the horror and panic rushing adrenaline through his veins.

They gripped his chin, forcing his jaws open. He struggled with all of his might, trying his hardest to keep them closed tightly. They held his nose shut, cutting off air to him nasally and, naturally, to regain air as well as the pressure on his jaws, his mouth opened and the blood was poured into it. Coppery and sulfuric, sweet and tempting, and now with the intoxicating poison that the throbbing beast inside of him craved more than anything, pooling past his split lips, the taste of it right there in his mouth, his body begged to swallow it down.

He wanted to.

He could. He could drink it all down the way every fibre in his being ached to and be strong again.

He had been so weak for so long, for months that felt more like years, that it made him yearn for the high, the rush of power.

" _You think I don't know? That you still crave it?_ "

He could.

" _You think I don't know that you won't throw yourself at the first demon you smell?_ "

Sam pushed himself up, stumbled to his feet with the support of the pool table. There was a snarl twisting his features, anger blazing through his veins.

"There. Was that really so bad?"

" _That you won't take the first chance you get at chugging it all down like the vile, demon-blood junkie you are?_ "

And he spat it all right back in his face.

" _You disgust me._ "

Tim groaned in pain and anger, hands covering his eyes. Reggie advanced on him, but Sam blocked his attack with his arm, grabbed his wrist and head-butted him in the face, Reggie's head snapping back as he dropped to the ground. Tim came at him again. He rammed his fist into the side of his head, and he fell down as well. When Reggie began to recover, attempting to stand up, Sam moved towards him and collided his boot hard in the face.

He turned to Tim, who was lying on his back on the ground, dazed. Sam bent down and grabbed the lapels of his jacket, dragged him to his feet and slammed him against the bar, gripping a knife at his throat. Tim's shaking hands shoved back at his chest, cowering. There was fury, burning away all sense and reason, and he was pissed and ready to kill, even if there was a part of him that protested against killing a human, an asshole though he might be.

But then he caught sight of Lindsey's face, and the anger dissolved slightly to make place for the concern that he might be scarring a girl for life by committing murder right in front of her.

He let go.

Sam threw Tim at Reggie and pointed at the door. "Go."

Reggie helped Tim to his feet, walking them out the door.

"Don't think we won't be back," Tim threatened, disheveled.

"Don't think I won't be here," he countered, sneering angrily.

Later in the night, awake at one, he wondered if it would have made a difference for Dean to see that Sam didn't fall the way he said he would.

Maybe it wouldn't, but at least Sam knew that monsters could change too.

**...**

That night, he dreamt of Jessica again.

Jessica who turned out to be Lucifer.

"You're a hard one to find, Sam," Lucifer conceded, sitting on the bed. His voice was reposed, nothing like the potent beast he imagined. Sam's heart was pounding as he stood, cold fear rushing through his body at the sight of the most evil being in the world sitting before him. "Harder than most humans. I don't suppose you'd tell me where you are?"

"What do you want with me?" Sam's voice was only just a whisper.

"Thanks to you, I walk the Earth." Lucifer sounded sincerely grateful. Sam felt nauseated. "I want to give you a gift. I want to give you everything."

"I don't want anything from you," he gritted out, forced courage making his shallow voice stronger.

"I'm so sorry, Sam. I-I really am. But Nick here is just an improvisation. Plan B." Lucifer gestured at the body. "He can barely contain me without spontaneously combusting."

"What are you talking about?"

Lucifer calmly stood up and began to walk closer to Sam. His hands were clasped. Sam rounded out of his way quickly, moving to avoid being within too close proximity. Lucifer faced him again, his gaze following Sam's own. "Why do you think you were in that chapel, Sam? You're my vessel. My true vessel."

"No," Sam whispered, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Yes."

"No," Sam repeated, trying to sound stronger and more convicted. His eyes burned. "That'll never happen."

"I'm sorry, but it will. I will find you. And when I do, you will let me in. I'm sure of it." Lucifer sounded so confident, far too sure, and that terrified the hell out of him.

Because it made him doubt himself too.

But then his words hit him.

"You need my consent," Sam stated, a sense of hope brewing in his chest suddenly. It was within his control, and if it was within his control, then he knew he had a way out. He knew he could always resist until his last breath.

Lucifer frowned, as if he thought that his statement was already obvious, crossing his arms over his chest. "Of course. I'm an angel."

Sam shifted on his feet, the smallest huff of a smile quirking at the corners of his lips briefly. He knew what he had to do. "I'll kill myself before letting you in," he proclaimed firmly.

"I'll just bring you back," Lucifer countered, effortlessly and easily. Sam's face fell. He sounded so confident that Sam couldn't tell if he was lying or not. Lucifer stared at him momentarily, before he sighed heavily, glancing down at the floor. "Sam," he began softly. He looked back up at him, a sort of sympathy in his eyes. It almost seemed genuine, and if Sam didn't know better, didn't know what he was, he would have believed it. He wouldn't have seen the underlying hollowness beneath it. "My heart breaks for you. The weight on your shoulders, what you've done. What you still have to do. It is more than anyone could bear. If there was some other way..." he trailed off, pausing. "But there isn't. I will never lie to you. I will never trick you. But you  _will_  say yes to me."

There were tears burning in his eyes, a lump in his throat that he tried to swallow away. Lucifer sounded too certain.

"You're wrong," Sam whispered.

"I'm not. I think I know you better than yourself."

Why did it have to be him?

Why couldn't it be someone else from the billions of people in this world who were stronger than him? Who could be trusted to handle this burden and fight harder to not bring the world to its complete ruin?

What would Dean think of him now if he found out?

He would kill him, slowly and painfully without a doubt, if Sam didn't figure out a way to do it himself.

"Why me?" he asked, breathless with his mourn, unshed tears stuck in his eyes.

"Because it had to be you, Sam," was all the answer he got. "It always had to be you."

…

He jerked awake in cold sweat, heart still hammering against his sternum. But it wasn't only the disturbing dream that caused him to awake so suddenly.

There were clicking sounds coming from the door. Someone was picking the locks of his motel room.

He grabbed his gun from under his pillow and stood up slowly. He aimed it at the door.

The sounds stopped suddenly. Sam frowned in confusion when nobody came in.

And then the door was abruptly kicked open with a loud collision and in came five people with guns, all pointed at him within seconds.

Two of the faces he recognized from not only a few hours ago, when they tried to force him to swallow a vile poison that was his greatest weakness (only next to Dean).

"Hey Sammy," Tim sneered. "Told ya we'd be back."

"I see you brought a couple more of your pals," Sam said, sounding far more reposed and confident than he truly felt. He knew he wouldn't be able to stave them all off, not when his past and recent wounds from his last fight with Reggie and Tim had already weakened him. Maybe he could hold his own against two unarmed men even now, under the influence of adrenaline and fury, but against five armed hunters seemed far-fetched. His mind was working, gears spinning as they searched for another way out. He couldn't call on Cas, because the sigils on his ribs prevented the angel from finding him, and plus, he must be too busy in his mission searching for God, hence why Sam's call hadn't been answered yet (or it was because it was a new number and Cas didn't know it was him). There was a window to his right side, but how fast he could run and crash through, especially with his still battered body, didn't seem very promising. Even so, how far could he really make it with five guns at his back?

"Oh, yeah," Tim said, as if he just remembered something. "Where are my manners? This is Kim." He nodded at a woman with blue dyed hair. "Todd." A stocky man in his mid-twenties with a leather jacket and grey eyes. "And finally, Fred." A man in his forties with a buzzcut.

"I really don't care," Sam said, holding his gun firm.

"But you should, Sam," Tim said, smirking. "You should remember the names of all the people that'll make you wish you were dead."

"Put down the gun," Reggie ordered, tilting his head. "We don't wanna end things before all the fun starts, do we?"

And that was the thing.

That was what they didn't know.

He didn't mind dying. Not after the dream he just had, not after the things he had done and not after the weariness he felt to his soul and not after the fact that the only person who promised to save him barely wanted him alive. Even so, despite knowing his chances of successfully escaping weren't very high, he could either let them take him effortlessly and do god-knows-what to him or he could go down fighting.

So he would take his chances.

Sam twisted abruptly and shot Reggie in the gut, who was the man closest to him (and therefore, who had the best shot at getting a shot at him), but off to the side where it would divert attention of everyone elsw, even if for the briefest time. It was an uncertain decision, only half a chance to successfully distract them and buy him a second or two. Kim shouted Reggie's name as he jolted back, falling to the ground while gripping his stomach. There was only a split second of shock in the room as they all supposedly expected him to give in and spare his own life. Everyone instinctively darted infinitesimal glances over to the injured man, his plan fulfilled, before they refocused and began to shoot. Kim abandoned the battlefield and ran over to help Steve.

Sam was three steps ahead when the shots started firing, dodging and ducking through them even as his gait was staggering and unsteady. Two bullets grazed his shoulder and back, one going into the flesh of his waist. He stumbled, teeth gritting hard as agony radiated across his upper left chest and hip. He forced himself through and put all of his energy into launching forward, adrenaline and basic survival instincts pushing him and pushing all pain away to maintain his focus on his goal. He threw as hard of a blow as he could with his own gun onto Todd's, the closest right now after Reggie of his would-be kidnappers, fingers. The gun was knocked off his hands, a yelp of pain emitting from him. Todd's momentary weakness gave him the chance to grab him and use him as a body shield facing everyone, his gun against his temple.

Everything stopped still.

"Drop all your weapons! On the floor! Now!"

And then he felt a bullet pierce his leg.

The agony radiated down to his legs and up his thighs, numbness beginning to settle into his toes, and forced him to drop to the ground, a gasp of anguish tearing out of his throat. His jaw clenched against the pain, breathing hard and fast. Todd shoved himself away from Sam, staggering away to his fellows.

Sam looked over to where he heard the gunshot from. Kim, who had her gun pointed at him, her eyes blazing with fury and hatred. She was the only one at an angle of where she could get a shot, even if it was somewhat risky for Todd. Steve was still breathing, hands pressed as tightly as they could to stem the flow of blood from his abdomen.

He fell back as his leg and body grew feeble to the wall behind him, one hand clutching his bleeding, throbbing calf and the other hand covering over the bullet wound on his side. Sweat was beading on his forehead as the adrenaline began to drain from him, leaving him cold and exhausted and aching all over, head spinning and gut lurching with nausea.

The last thing he saw was Tim, lunging forward and smashing metal into his head.

And then everything went dark.

**…**

Real Universe

_Two weeks earlier_

Sam stood with Castiel in the panic room, staring contemplatively at the sleeping man on the cot. There was still blood on his clothes, on the shoulder of his shirt and spattered brown dots on the chest of it, a large stain on the thigh of his jeans, but the wounds that they seeped from were now healed.

After Sam had injected Dean with the sleep-inducing drug, he had tried calling Cas again who finally answered this time. He showed up and had Dean teleported down to the panic room. He fixed up his wrist too. Sam felt a warmth of gratitude for the angel, thought that Cas was an honest blessing in their lives. He truly was.

Or, at least in Dean's and Bobby's lives, he supposed. He didn't think Castiel saw him as anything more than Dean Winchester's abomination of a younger brother that jumpstarted armageddon, which was saddening, but also fair and well-deserved.

"This is not the Dean we know," Castiel stated, tilting his head as he turned to look at Sam.

Sam nodded. "He's not. He's angry and violent and pretty messed up. So more like a psycho version of Dean," he relayed. "We think this is the Dean from that other world that our Dean was sent to."

Cas shifted his gaze back to the unconscious, prone form of the man. "Does he know anything about what is happening?"

"I don't know," Sam responded, shrugging. "He didn't say anything to indicate that he would. He didn't seem to care much about what was going on." He paused. "He, uh… he actually didn't seem to care much about anything, except the things I did last year. He seems to particularly dislike me. He was just...dark, I guess, is the word. Full of rage."

The angel gave one solemn nod. "I see."

There was silence for a moment.

"What are we going to do, Cas?" Sam queried frettingly, his voice quiet. "How are we going to fix this?"

"We will fix it, Sam," Castiel reassured, which was such a human thing to do that it nearly made Sam smile. It was somehow made even more endearing by the fact that he retained his flat, gravelly tone. "I have been searching for information on this situation. There is not much I have learned yet, but as far as I know, demons know nothing of what is occurring here, and neither do angels. If this is the work of an archangel, Michael or Lucifer are either not involved or are not disclosing of it to their insubordinates."

Sam mulled it over for a moment. If it  _was_ an archangel, that possibly ruled out two of their best suspects. There wasn't much to go on so far, as the angel said, but Cas was trying at the expense of his valuable time that could have been spent on his search for God. Then again, he supposed this was about  _Dean_  and Cas did have a soft spot for his brother, and he appreciated his help. "Thanks, Cas. Really." He smiled slightly. "It… this whole thing is daunting to be honest, you know? So we need all the help we can get."

"Of course," Castiel said with a small, awkward nod, in his typically emotionless manner of speaking.

**…**

The next morning, when Sam entered the panic room, Dean was awake.

"Get these fucking handcuffs off of me," Dean snarled as soon as he opened the door.

"Morning to you too, sunshine," Sam huffed, putting down the tray of breakfast on the foot of the bed. "No can do. You haven't given me much of a reason to  _not_  keep you in handcuffs. You know, what with you trying to smother me in my sleep last night."

"Let me rephrase that." Dean smiled sardonically at him. "Either you get these damn chains off of me or you're spending the rest of your life crawling around on your knees and elbows."

"Well, I'm sure if you keep threatening to chop me up, I'll eventually be convinced to let you loose," Sam said sarcastically. He pushed the food towards him. "I brought you breakfast."

**…**

_Present_

"What are you doing up so late?"

Sam twirled the whiskey bottle between his fingers, not looking up at his surrogate father as he wheeled in. Not usually his go-to coping mechanism when things went to crap in his life, but the dream he had tonight was particularly crappy, so he figured he reserved the right to take on the unhealthy coping mechanism that ran in the family.

He had woken up gasping and cold and sweaty, heart pounding against his sternum and his blood pumping in his ears. He had woken up not being able to breathe.

He was Lucifer's vessel.

Maybe it was merely the intoxication, but Sam felt a hysterical urge to laugh at the horrifying thought. It sounded so strange. Sam Winchester was Lucifer's  _one true meatsuit_.

And yet it made all the sense in the world.

Because Sam had always been the tainted one. Dirty. Destined for evil. Doomed from the start. So of course, of  _course_ , the purpose of his birth had been made to be Satan's vessel, unlike his big brother. Dean, the righteous man. Michael's Sword. He had always been pure and good and the absolute opposite of Sam. Sam had never doubted that and loved him all the more for it, but now, perhaps for a brief, vague moment, he envied him.

In the final moments of his life in a hospital room, his father had told his brother to either save him or kill him, having known before the rest of them that Azazel had something wicked planned for him, and Sam had been meant to fall (and he almost  _did_ , two years later, he did), to walk down the dark path that he had been so terrified of inadvertently running into that year until they killed Azazel. And he thought that was it. That was where it ended.

Now he ended up right where they wanted him, their true endgame. Right where he led himself to with his poor decisions.

He wondered what his father would think of him now. Of course, he would not have known the true extent of what had been in store for him, what he was truly fated to be.

Had he known, surely he would have only given Dean one choice.

Sam should have breathed his last in Cold Oak. If that had happened, this world would have been facing a completely different future.

"Boy?" Bobby asked, sounding impatient. He must have been waiting for a response for a while.

"Bad dream," Sam said simply, picking at the label of the Jack Daniels bottle.

"Bad dreams have never made ya resort to alcohol, boy."

"A  _really_  bad dream," Sam rephrased. He might be a little bit drunk already.

"And what exactly did ya see in that  _really_  bad dream of yours?"

Sam remained silent for a moment. He wondered what Bobby would think of him if he told him now.

He wondered what  _Dean_  would think of him if he found out about it. His own Dean. He probably already had, in that other world, if the Sam of that world had the same dream and told him about it.

"Lucifer," he finally replied, his voice soft. Bobby's eyes went up into his hairline. "Said I'm his vessel. You know, like… like Dean is Michael's."

Bobby seemed to be struck speechless at the news. He didn't say anything for a while.

And then he wheeled over to the cabinets. Sam didn't look at what he was doing, his eyes fixated on the amber liquid crashing into the walls of the bottle as he twirled it by the neck slowly, because the shame wouldn't let him raise his gaze any further. He heard the cabinet doors open, the sound of two colliding clinks, before it clicked back shut.

Bobby rolled his wheelchair back to him one-handedly and placed the two glass shots on the wooden table, one for Sam and the other for himself.

"Pour up," he said gruffly. "And start talkin'."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much of this chapter was probably kind of meh due to all the copying from the show, but I felt that they were kind of necessary to put there. Even if we would all know what had happened, it still would have looked like it came out of nowhere. I hope you guys still enjoyed it. If not, at least the rest of the parts. Also, the fighting scenes...ugh...I just...I find them tough. I mean, Sam's a tough cookie, but I can't tell if AU Sam was unrealistically strong in the last one considering his physical state. Well, I mean...to be fair, he wasn't really fighting. He was mostly just trying to play smart.
> 
> DID IT EVEN MAKE SENSE THOUGH? I don't know I don't know can we please go easy on my dumbass, bad-at-writing-action-scenes self? D:
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! I also want to say that we will be dealing with our Dean next chapter, and the chapter after that will also be focused on him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: several scenes in this chapter are taken directly from the show
> 
> Warning: major spoilers for 5.03 and 5.04

Dean had been calling Bobby for the past hour from a shithole motel in Illinois, but the damn old man wasn't picking up. He left him several voice messages, yelling (which the man would not take kindly to, but goddamn it Dean was too damn frustrated and tense to care) at him to call back already. He had been calling Bobby on and off the past two weeks too, but not once were they answered.

At first, he had worried that something might have gotten to him, which would be far too easy now that Bobby's legs were disabled. His house was heavily warded against all kinds of monsters though, so it had to have happened while he was outdoors for whatever reason. That fearsome hypothesis was soon disproved when, on nearly the thirtieth call, the man finally answered.

For all of four seconds to tell him, "Stop callin' me, ya goddamn stupid son of a bitch, or I swear I'll shoot ya ears off all the way from 'ere."

The line clicked and began beeping again before Dean could get a word in.

He called him again. No answer. Dean scowled and hurled his phone irritatedly at the mattress.

He then washed a hand across his face, leaving it clamped over his mouth.

He needed to talk to Bobby about whatever the hell was going on here. He needed his help in getting out.

But Bobby had seemed beyond pissed at him. In fact, there was a clear edge of hatred in his tone, which probably meant he knew.

He knew everything that was happening to Sam at his hands here.

No wonder Bobby had sounded like that.

Part of him didn't mind it because it was for Sammy after all. The other part had to remind himself that it wasn't really towards  _him_.

He wondered how he found out, because knowing Sam, or at least having a sense of knowing this one after staying with him for two weeks, there was no way he would have told him about that willingly.

Well, if Bobby wasn't answering his calls, then he would just have to show up at his door uninvited. And when he did, there would be no time to beat around the bush. He would have to tell him the truth straight away before Bobby shot the crap out of him. If he didn't believe him, though, that would be quite... a problem, one he wouldn't know how to fix because how in the  _fuck_  did he just prove that he came from another  _world_?

Maybe the best way would have been to convince Sam somehow first, because Bobby would surely listen to him.

But he could never bring himself to tell him, no matter how much he tried, even though it would have made things a hell of a lot easier on them both. It sounded too crazy to say it, maybe, and something just  _always held him back._  He couldn't explain it. It was almost as if some external power was forcing his words down his throat. He was half-certain it was the same bastard that was playing this entire game with him.

But it was too late for that now, and either way, him staying far away from Sam was for the best. Two weeks in, and he was getting real tired of seeing Sam walk on eggshells around him, always so tense and uneasy and afraid every time he was even in the same goddamn _room_ as him. He couldn't keep seeing that. It just made him hurt and angry and just—just way too fucking sad.

More than that, it was safer for him. Now more than ever with this darkness stirring awake inside of him, and Sam _could_ …

Sure he wasn't in the best shape when he left him, but he was fine enough to take care of himself, right? At least this way, Dean ensured that Sam wouldn't be in any danger from him (one that Sam would never fight back against). Everything else, Sam could protect himself from.

And if he had told Sam the truth, then he would have wanted to tag along to help him out. His fear of him, as much as Dean loathed it and as much as it broke him on the inside, kept him from fighting too much against his decision to leave.

Dean's phone buzzed. His heart bloomed with hope that it was Bobby as he hastily snatched it off the covers of the bed.

The caller ID read 'Cas'. The hope drained away, replaced with mild disappointment.

He answered.

"Hello, Dean."

"This better be important, man," he said, a hint of exasperation in his tone. There were a billion things on his mind right now and not enough space for anything else, including patience.

"It is. Where are you?"

"Red Lion Motor Lodge in Havana, Illinois—"

Before he could even finish, the angel was right in front of him in a sound of fluttering wings. Dean jumped at the abrupt appearance, heart skipping a beat. He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed, thumping the mattress. "Damn it! I told you I hate it when you do that!" he exclaimed.

"My apologies," Cas said, even though he barely sounded or looked contrite. The guy was way too impassive. He glanced around briefly. For a moment, he was quiet, before almost tentatively asking, "Where… where is Sam?"

"I didn't eat him, Cas," Dean replied, rolling his eyes. "Don't confuse me with the other guy. I, uh… I left him. In Indiana."

"Why?" he asked, tilting his head curiously.

"Because it's for his own good," Dean responded simply.

"What do you mean?" Cas looked even more confused and even more like a fucking bird by the second. A very constipated bird. He was frowning very intensely. "Has it started? The adaptations?"

"If you mean that I'm turning into the dickface I'm supposed to be in this shit-ass globe, then yeah, the 'adaptations' have started. We done with the twenty-questions, Cas? 'Cause I am." Dean had been driving for hours. He had just finished a quick hunt of a nest of vampires because it was on the way and now he was tired, but he couldn't sleep because of his horrendous fucking nightmares so he would have to get piss-poor drunk instead to get some shut-eye. Tomorrow, he had a long-ass drive ahead of him to Bobby's. He had zero patience for chit-chat right now. "Will you get to the reason why you're here already?

"I need your help."

"Is it with your God hunt? Because I ain't interested with helping you on that."

"It is not God. It is someone else."

"Who?"

"Archangel. The one who killed me."

"'Scuse me?"

"His name is Raphael."

"You were wasted by some teenage mutant ninja angel?"

Castiel went on to inform him that Raphael was walking the Earth for the first time in a long while, and it was a rare opportunity to strike him in order to gain information. He told him of his plan to trap and interrogate him.

When Dean asked for one good reason why he should help him in his crusade, Castiel reminded him that he was Michael's vessel, which meant no angel would dare hurt him..

"Oh, so I'm your bullet shield?"

"I need your help because you are the only one that'll help me. Please," Castiel pleaded.

Dean considered it for a moment. It would probably be a few days, although there was no telling how rapidly his disease would progress in these few days. But Castiel would be able to incapacitate him easily anyway if he began to grow that violent in such a short time. He would have to postpone his visit to Sioux Falls. Either way, Sammy was long gone and he had no idea where he would be right now, and he didn't want to know, because if he lost his fight with whatever this was, then he wanted to make sure he would never be able to search his brother out in order to harm him again. Sam was safe from him and that was all that mattered.

And Cas was pleading.  _Cas_. Which meant that he really did need Dean's help. The guy did do a lot for them both, including rebelling against heaven and falling for them, so Dean supposed this could be a sort of compensation as well as his last adventure before he returned back to his own world.

"Alright, fine," Dean caved. "So where is he?"

"Maine. Let's go." Castiel reached out two fingers.

Dean leaned away from them quickly. "Whoa."

Castiel withdrew his hand. "What?"

"Last time you zapped me some place, I didn't poop for a week," Dean grumbled. Castiel was frowning confusedly again. "We're driving."

 

**...**

 

"Tell me something," Dean said as he turned down the radio volume, cutting through the silence between them in the crap tin of a car. He was about to fall asleep despite the music blasting in his ears. "You ever tried to help Sammy out here?"

Cas didn't entirely understand human affairs and emotions such as compassion and solicitude, so Dean wasn't sure how compelled he would be to try and help Sam. Plus, he wasn't sure if the angel even liked the kid all that much because of the demon blood thing, which didn't exactly make Dean happy to think about.

But Cas' response turned out to be unexpected. "However I could." Dean's brows went up, more than a little surprised. "I healed his wounds every time I visited, although you were not very agreeable towards it. There were even times that I was compelled to intervene. I did not for a long time, considering that the one time that I attempted to, Sam forced me to stop and consider that you would waste no second to cut me out of your life."

With the concealment sigils on their ribs, Cas would never be able to find them unless he was told their location directly. Sam hadn't even had a fucking cellphone back then so he was literally the only one who could do that. "On our last meeting nearly four weeks ago, I tried to reason with you once more, but you refused to listen and were very aggressive in expressing that I had no right to tell you what to do or not do. Sam explained to me about the irrevocable effects that Hell had on you, and I understood then that nothing would force you to see sense anymore. As your brother predicted, ever since then, you have not picked up any of my numerous calls and I have not been able to find you."

Dean felt somewhat touched that Castiel, who was naturally and hopelessly a brick when it came to human emotions, somehow could feel that much for his baby brother, enough to be pushed to do something to help him.

"Why didn't you zap him away to, like, Antarctica or somethin'? Somewhere far away from that douchebag?"

"Sam did not want to leave you. I also do not think Antarctica is safe for humans as a long-term residential area."

"Well, you still could have zapped him away someplace else, because that moron doesn't seem to know what's best for him. God knows why he's been so damn hellbent on staying with that ruthless son of a bitch."

"He has expressed to me that he chooses to remain with you because he feels responsible for your current state."

And then Dean nearly swerved the car into a fucking tree.

He hauled up on the side of the road before he could, Dean jolting forward at the force of the speed. Castiel remained still as a statue, barely twitching away from the back of the passenger seat. "Fuckin' s'cuse me?" Dean growled. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"Sam believes that he was the reason you went to Hell and suffered so deeply that you were forced to get off the rack," Castiel began. The idea that his kid brother would believe that, that he would hold something like that over his own head, felt like a punch to his gut. "Thus, in order to survive in a place as horrendous as Hell itself, you grew this darkness and rage inside of you that you carried in your soul back to Earth."

Goddamnit, Sammy. How did his little brother come to all these idiotic conclusions? "How come that didn't happen to me? I mean, I didn't carry all that 'darkness and rage' inside of me back to  _my_  life."

"I cannot say," Castiel replied. "Every universe has a different outcome, a different reaction and a consequence of every occurrence. It is difficult to comprehend why certain things come to be in one world but doesn't in others."

"So that's why that dumbass chose to stay? 'Cause he thought he—he owed me a fuckin' punching bag to let out my never-endin' 'darkness and rage' on?"

"There is more. After you returned, you tried hard to maintain control, despite how immensely difficult it was," Castiel continued, his tone of voice far too factual and blank for what he was relaying to Dean. "You made every attempt to return to your old self, but Sam's actions, his constant secrets and lies as well as his questionable choices, particularly of choosing Ruby over you repeatedly, were pushing you towards your breaking point. You were losing your reason and purpose to resist, as he kept doing the things he did, until one day you finally broke."

Dean's glare was rooted adamantly to the steering wheel, hands gripping the circle tightly. He had no goddamn idea—not  _one_ —about what was going through his brother's thick head, every fucking time he let the him of this world hurt him, about what kept him shackled to the horrible life he was living. Undoubtedly, Sam would also think that if only he had done things differently, none of this would have happened, that he would be facing a far different older brother than he was now. Dean couldn't figure out how true that was, but there was no fucking way Sam deserved any of the things that had happened to him at that crazy bastard's hands and no fucking way he was allowed to even  _think_  so, and he had absolutely not  _ever_  been obliged to stay to be some fucked up human Hell-rage reliever.

"What made it worse to him was that you tried to convey this to him before, that you were beginning to lose your battle, but he never understood it, engrossed in his mission to save the world, 'stubborn and pigheaded', as he said, in his belief that he was doing the right thing. You began losing control, and it further pushed him away and into Ruby's arms, when what he thought he should have done was stop for your sake."

 _Hate the message, not the messenger_ , Dean reminded himself as he struggled within himself not to start screaming at the closest person to him. He simultaneously wanted to break things and break down, because fuck, Sammy… fucking  _Sammy_ , his kid brother, his  _kid_ —holding all this sorrow and anguish and guilt inside of him, so much of it that he thought being bruised and battered by  _his_  fists was the way to compensate for everything.

"This was his way of attempting to lessen your suffering," Castiel added. "He believed, as he was to blame for all of it, that he should also suffer if it was what helped you feel even the slightest bit better. He believed this was his penance to you and the world, for all the anguish and harm and chaos he caused to you and the lives he put at stake. He also feared that if he was not present to bear the brunt of it, you would redirect your darkness upon other innocent people."

 

**…**

 

They trapped Raphael in a circle of fire made by a special oil from Jerusalem. Raphael threatened to take Dean to Michael, to torture him into saying yes, told them that God was dead and tried to convince Cas he was resurrected by Lucifer instead.

Basically, he talked a whole lot of crap before they left him simmering in that holy ring of flames.

In the crap tin of his stolen, temporary car, Dean asked Cas, "You okay?"

Cas didn't say anything.

"Look, I'll be the first to tell you that this little crusade of yours is nuts," Dean said bluntly. "But I do know a little something about missing fathers."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean there were times when I was looking for my dad when all logic said that he was dead, but I knew in my heart he was still alive," Dean explained. "Who cares what some ninja turtle says, Cas. What do you believe?"

There was a brief, silent moment of thought, before Cas responded, "I believe he is out there."

"Good," Dean said approvably. "Then go find him."

"What about you?"

It was Dean's turn to go momentarily silent.

"What about me?" he echoed softly, huffing slightly. "I gotta get out of here before I, uh... _change_ , you know. Get back to a world that makes sense to me. Talk about some stuff with Sammy. My Sammy. Maybe while I'm at it, talk some sense into him too."

"Have you forgiven him?" Cas asked.

"Honestly, I don't know." Dean watched the car eat up the road ahead of him. "The stuff he's done, it's… hard. Still sucks to even think about. But if this is anything like how he feels, then I don't want him to feel like that."

 

**…**

 

 _"Why can't you see that I'm helping people, Dean?" Sam's voice was low, as if he was trying to control the volume of it. His face was tightened into a subdued, controlled expression. There were emotions brimming beneath his words and in his glaring eyes, hurt and anger at the forefront of it all. "Ruby and I, we're trying to save the_ world _."_

_"Because while you're at it, you're turning yourself into a grade A freak, Sam!" Dean countered loudly, blazing eyes wild with anger and a tinge of concealed fear. The nauseating burn of rage and blackness twisting and shriveling in his soul, always right there fighting to drive his fists and his mouth and his emotions and thoughts out of control...how long could he hold his grip over it? It was numbed right now for the most part, at least. It came and it went like breezes on a summer day, but it was growing stronger and stronger by the day and he could sense these moments of clarity were becoming shorter and shorter as they did. The darkness was beginning to throw its shadow over every part and aspect of his consciousness, spreading throughout his brain and soul like cancer until it tainted all his emotions and thoughts, swallowed up every bit of lucidity and practicality in him, gradually altering him to his core._

_And everything Sam was doing these days... it was only accelerating it. He needed him to stop, needed him to just fucking stop so that he wouldn't lose himself too fast, before he could find a way out. He needed Sam to stop before he lost all grip over his sanity._

_Sam's face fell blank, taken aback, before his jaw clenched with a renewed, doubled pain and fury. Realizing, with the flicker of objectivity seeping into his mind against that mild, dull Hellfire still struggling like a beast in the cages of his body, that he stooped too low with that remark, Dean turned away, rubbing a hand down his features wearily. "Sam, I'm struggling, okay? With...with Hell. And it's getting harder and harder to deal with it."_

_"I know, Dean. I do," Sam said, his voice softening noticeably. "But man, I'm doing all of this for_ you _too. I mean, that's how it all even started."_

_"No, man, you don't understand," Dean said, shaking his head. He turned back around to face him. "I'm losing my mind, my soul, my control, my fucking sanity. And this... what you're doing, lying to me, sneaking around behind my back...it's making things worse and I need you to fucking stop, okay? Please. For my sake."_

_Sam was staring at him, the sadness and compassion in his eyes hushing away all prior dredges of hurt and anger, but there was a firm determination and stubbornness hardening his eyes ever so slightly, a remorseful frown lining his face. "Dean... I'm doing what I can to help you out of this. But what you're asking of me... I can't. I have to do this. It's the only way to stop Lilith."_

 

**...**

 

Dean got out of the car to head for the motel.

"Excuse me, friend," a man said, following him. "but have you taken time out to think about God's plan for you?

Dean stopped and looked at him. "Too freakin' much, pal."

He then continued moving forward.

He never noticed the man's gaze tracking him.

**…**

 

The next morning, he woke up to an entirely different room.

It was the same room, actually, but it  _looked_  entirely different. It had the same old wallpaper and carpet, but it was full of dust and cobwebs as if nobody had stepped foot in this place for years. The nightstand clock was broken, even though he remembered that it was fully intact before he went to bed. The mattress on his bed was old and worn.

He sat up on the springs of the bed. Stood up and looked around. The room was destroyed completely, broken furniture scattering the floor.

He slowly walked over to the window.

The city, eerily quiet and empty under the expanse of the gray skies, was destroyed too.

 

**…**

 

In the span of the five minutes he spent outdoors, he got attacked by a Crotoan-infected little girl, who was then put down by a bunch of soldiers that loved The Contours. Dean broke through the fence and discovered by the date on the sign that the world he was standing on had orbited around the sun five more times than it did in his own time.

1st August, 2014.

He was thrown five years into the future of a world that wasn't even his. Great.

Dean found a car that was fully fueled, which was somewhat suspiciously convenient. Nonetheless, he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He hotwired the car in a minute and started driving. When he tried to turn the radio on, he received nothing but static noise. There was also no cell service.

"That's never a good sign," he muttered to himself.

"Croatoan pandemic reaches Australia." The voice abruptly piping up from the passenger seat startled Dean. He looked over to find Zachariah with a newspaper in his grasp, and the burn of irritation and ire, typical whenever he saw the ugly fucking mug, rose in his chest.

"I thought I smelled your stink on this Back to the Future crap," Dean spat

"'President Palin defends bombing of Houston.'" Certainly a buyer's market in real estate. Let's see what's happening in sports. That's right—no more sports. Congress revoked the right to group assembly. What's left of Congress, that is. Hardly a quorum, if you ask me," Zachariah blabbered.

"How did you find me?" Dean asked.

"Afraid we had to tap some unorthodox resources of late—human informants," Zachariah answered. "We've been making inspirational visits to the fringier Christian groups. They've been given your image, told to keep an eye out."

Dean thought back, and in less than a couple of seconds, remembered. "The Bible freak outside the motel—he, what, dropped a dime on me?"

"Onward, Christian soldiers." The smug look on Zachariah's face made him want to punch it off.

"Okay, well, good, great. You have had your jollies. Now send me back, you son of a bitch!"

"Oh, you'll get back—all in good time. We want you to marinate a bit."

"Marinate?" Dean echoed, raising his brows. "Listen, jackass. Whatever the hell this is, I ain't even from your universe, so what the hell do you think you'll be achieving out of this?"

"Oh, that doesn't matter. If he comes back, he'll regain these memories and learn the same lesson. Maybe it'll help you make the right decision for your own world too, who knows? But if he doesn't, that's fine too, because then this will just fall on you," Zachariah said, that characteristic annoying smile curling at his lips again. Then it disappeared. "Three days, Dean. Three days to see where this course of action takes you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that your choices have consequences," Zachariah responded. "This is what happens to the world if you continue to say 'no' to Michael. Have a little look-see."

And then he vanished.

**…**

Bobby's place was thoroughly trashed. Spiderwebs and dust indicated that nobody had been there for a long while. His wheelchair was on its side, bullet-holes through them, which meant he was most likely dead now. By a picture he found of his surrogate father and Cas, along with three other unidentified men, he was able to discover the location of everyone else.

Camp Chitaqua.

At night, he drove to Camp Chitaqua in his stolen car. When he approached the sign reading the camp's name out to him,, he saw the armed men patrolling on the other side of the fence guardedly. He carefully dodged out of their line of vision.

Dean caught sight of the Impala, rusted up and beaten. He moved closer for a better examination of the damage, muttering, "Oh, baby. No."

He peered into the driver's side.

There was a rustle from behind him. In the second that Dean turned to look, he saw a brief glimpse of a green, military-issue jacket and blonde hair before sharp pain cut across his head.

And the world went dark.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess whooo?
> 
> Hello! I really wanted to get this chapter up last week and just get it over with, but... internet issues. In compensation, I will have the next chapter up hopefully sooner than the usual once I edit it (if my deadlines and tests don"t sweep me away before I do), even though I'm running out of chapters. I sort of need the weeks in between to continue writing more chapters, but I'm slowing down. I'm still writing, almost done with the 14th, but yeah... posting more than writing these days *sigh*
> 
> I'm so very sorry about another meh (and very rushed) chapter, but I hope the cliffhanger has you interested! I really wanted to explore psycho-Dean and our Dean's interactions and dynamic, and well, this was one way. Also this shall be the last meh, rushed chapter, so please bear with me, lovelies! No more copying directly from the show (I hate it as much as you do. I'm really sorry). In the next chapter there are a few teeny weeny scenes that are based off of scenes from the show but mostly changed up a little. But like 95% of the chapter is written myself. After that, the entire story in the AU diverges completely from what happened in the show.
> 
> ALSO, guys, if there is anything you don't understand about the story, don't hesitate to ask. I hope it's all making sense, but if not, I'll clear up any doubts and confusion you might have regarding the story.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: major spoilers for 5x04 ahead, implications of past abuse. We'll be seeing dark!AU!Dean up close, which you might find as difficult to read as it was difficult for me to write.
> 
> Disclaimer: a few scenes in this chapter are taken directly from the show. All credits to where it is due

 

Dean woke up with his head aching like a bitch and found himself chained to a ladder.

He also woke up to the sight of himself across the room, cleaning a gun.

"What the hell?" The bewildered reaction came out of him impulsively.

"I should be asking that question, don't you think?" The other Dean responded, not budging his gaze from his task. "In fact, why don't you give me one good reason why I shouldn't gank you right here and now."

And Dean stopped still as everything came back to him.

Couldn't find his voice to speak.

This wasn't… this wasn't future  _him_ , was it? This was the future Dean of  _this_  world. The same man five years ago that caused Sammy so much pain and suffering, that put the terror in his eyes at his fast and sudden movements and the tremor in his voice whenever he spoke to him and the tightness in his body whenever he was even in the same goddamn  _room_  as him. Put that slouch in his back and the bone-deep sorrow and shame in his bruised, weary gaze and the slowness and soreness in his gait. He made his own baby brother hurt. He made  _his_  baby brother hurt, even if in another world. He made him cry and plead and  _scream_  from the torture and abuse (and Sam's pain threshold was fucking  _high_  so what did that say about how bad it had all been?), the dreams of which haunted him now almost every night if it wasn't nightmares of Hell instead.

He made Sammy feel alone, cut him off from the few people that cared about him. Kept him chained up and caged and treated him more like a slave, a whipping boy, than his own flesh and blood. He made him break with his horrible, horrible words alone. Broke him so bad that nearly everything Sam did was with this fear that he was doing something wrong, tiptoed around him like Dean was a ticking time bomb that would set off with even the slightest movement.

"How could you?" it came out in a breathless whisper. He wanted to sound angry,  _furious_ , wanted to yell and scream and cuss the worst he knew at this fucked up, demented bastard, pour onto him all the fire that had charred his insides after every dream he had, after every instance in which he had to watch Sam cower and flinch away from him. But he couldn't… he couldn't fucking speak at the sight of him, his own face, his own self, but nothing like himself at all in everything that mattered, everything that made him who he was (Sammy, loving that kid…  _that_  made him who he was). This was  _him_. He was the one that did all the terrible things he had to watch himself do every night. "Your own kid brother… how could you?"

The other Dean looked at him. If it was possible to have no expression at all, the result had to have been the closest thing to this. His features were absolutely stony and frosted, before his head levered downwards, liquid-smooth, to glance back down at the gun he was cleaning out. He placed it down on the ground.

"That ain't any of your fucking business." His voice was low and hollow, as emotionless as the rest of him, not looking up. In the place of the gun, he picked up a knife he had newly sharpened.

Dean's eyes narrowed into a blazing glare, fury erupting in his chest as he snarled out, "Sammy _is_ my fucking busin—"

He cut him off, turning his face towards him again. "But you wanna know what  _is_  your business?" He stood slowly to his feet. He began to move towards him, knife gesturing at Dean. "Telling me who and what you are by the next minute, because after that, I'll be slitting off your vocal chords."

Dean's jaw clenched, trapping down the emotions in his chest for the time being. "Not a shapeshifter or a demon or anything, alright?"

"Yeah, I know. I did the drill while you were out," Psycho-Dean told him. He stopped when he was standing in front of him. He crouched down, leaning closely into his face. There was something disturbing and somber and heavy about the air around him, the look in his empty, icy gaze, fixed open and unblinking at him like a dead man's. Dean stared right back, forcing himself to hold his ground. "Silver, salt, holy water—nothing. But you know what was funny? Was that you had every hidden lockpick, box cutter, and switchblade that I carry. Now, you want to explain that? Oh, and the, uh, resemblance, while you're at it?"

"Zachariah," he answered simply.

"Come again?"

"Look, it's a bit complicated. I'm you, but from another world where I'm—I'm basically nicer, not a total psychotic dickface like you. In my time, something—I dunno what—replaced your consciousness with mine. I have no idea where you are and frankly, I don't give a shit." Dean had no idea if this unhinged douchebag was even buying it. He didn't think he himself would, but he wasn't sure how much he cared either. "Zach plucked me from my bed and threw me five years into the future here. Said once you were returned by whatever got you, you'd regain these memories and learn the 'same lesson', and then disappeared. Now I've answered your question, so you answer mine. Where the hell is Sam?"

"That's a real fun tale you just told." Psycho-Dean smirked, slightly breaking through his still gelid face. He was testing him with his feigned disbelief, closely scrutinizing his expression. Dean knew the trick. "Any more bedtime stories you got?"

"Where the hell is Sam?" Dean repeated curtly without a twitch, persisting in his eye-contact as he matched his frigid expression.

Psycho-Dean huffed out a dark, empty laugh. "Sam..." He turned away, wiping a hand down his face. "That demon-sucking piece of shit." His teeth was grinded, his growling voice full of acidic contempt and abhorrence.

Dean lurched forward, the handcuff pulling on his radiocarpal joint and cutting into the skin of his wrist. "Watch your damn mouth when you talk about him, you son of a bitch!" he hissed sharply, felt the fury explode into white-hot rage in his head and chest, coloring the world dim and red. After everything he had heard him say (through  _himself_ ) in his dreams, he couldn't stand this bastard saying a fucking  _word_  against his baby brother.

"You act like you love him so much?" Psycho-Dean sneered, spinning around on him. "Wait til' you hear."

"Hear  _what_?" Dean reciprocated the snide facial gesture.

"That he said the big fucking yes." Psycho-Dean laughed, mirthless and scathing. "And why? Because the coward couldn't reap what he sowed? Look at what he brought upon this damn planet. It's been fucking crawling with Croats for the past three years!"

Dean couldn't understand what the deranged lunatic was blabbering about, and he didn't try to hide it.

He tilted his head, eyes narrowed as he examined his expression. "Oh, you don't know yet, do you? That Lucifer's wearing him to the prom?" He scoffed. "Sweet little Sammy's Satan's one true meatsuit."

Dean stilled, a jolt of ice rushing through his veins. To think that Sam was destined to carry the true embodiment of evil in his body was… concerning, to say the least, but he wasn't about to give Psycho-Dean the satisfaction of knowing that.

"So you, what, fucked him up so much that the only way out for him was to let Satan in?" Dean said brusquely, lifting an eyebrow. "You really wanna know who's at fault here for screwing the world?" And then there was skull-deep pain festering all across his face, emitting a tight grunt from him.

Psycho-Dean grabbed his collar, yelling lividly into his throbbing face, "I had a responsibility to keep that blood-sucking freak in check! Make sure he didn't screw the world over more than he already did! He needed to learn his lesson, and I needed to make sure he never forgot it!"

"You're a fucking delusional, self-righteous bastard, you know that? Dean spat back at him. "You're the one that needs to be kept in check! You think Sam was just lettin' you whale on him 'cause he liked it? It's because you're dangerous! He was absorbing shockwaves, trying to make sure you didn't do to others what you did to him!"

"That's bullshit! He was just a weak little bitch!" Psycho-Dean bit out, venom and vitriol in his tone. "The same weak little bitch who got half the planet burnt into a crisp just because he couldn't take what he deserved!"

"You're insane," Dean snarled through gritted teeth, incandescent rage and frustration straining his voice. "You're just fucking insane. He was your  _baby brother_! He was  _yours_! The kid we swore to protect!  _That's_  who you were responsible to. How could you become one of the things he needed to be protected from, you sick son of a bitch?"

"How about for once in your goddamn, shitty, miserable life, you think with your head and not with your heart, you fucking dumbass!" Psycho-Dean shot back seethingly. "Sam was a monster, always has been ever since he was born. You're blinded by your foolish love for him. I'm the one that finally began to see clearly."

"I'm sure as hell thinking with my head more than you are! You're the one being blinded by all the shit you brought back from Hell!" Dean leaned forward, hissing vehemently, "And if you were in your right goddamn mind, you would have  _killed_  yourself before you even thought about laying a finger on him like that!"

Dean's head snapped to the side again, blazing pain stinging across his jaw. Psycho-Dean grabbed his collar again, trying to catch his rapidly blinking eyes as he tried to refocus. "I'm more in my right mind than I've ever been." There was ice in the feral quirk of his rictus-shaped lips. "Oh-nine, right? When you get back, you'll find out what your saint little Sammy does, and why he made it all worse on himself."

"Oh, and why is that?"

"Demon-fucker falls off the wagon." Dean kept his face rigid, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing how that statement bothered him. Psycho-Dean tilted his head, knocked him against the wall hard and backed away, chuckling somberly. "But no, you won't believe me when I say that, will you? Because even after everything he's done, you still won't see him for what he is."

"Sam's fucked up shit a lot, but so have we. Or did you forget all the things we've done on our little trip downstairs?" Dean reminded, his greatest resort to hitting a nerve, even when it weighed like a boulder on his own soul to remember.

But Psycho-Dean was back to being stone-faced, a steely, dead stare fixated on him.

"I can't kill you, no matter how badly I want to, because I dunno how that'll fuck up the timeline."  _How fucking noble of you_. "But you should hope real good that you don't cross the limits of my patience."

"Tough, because I'm definitely killing you, slowly and painfully, once I get out of these handcuffs." Dean held the eye-contact, matching his glacial face. Psycho-Dean stared back without a blink. "So you should be the one hopin'."

**…**

There was  _nothing_  nearby for Dean to use in order to unlock the handcuffs.

The bastard thought it all through. He knew all of his secret hiding places and he made sure there wasn't anything close by that could aid him in achieving his freedom.

He could break his thumb to get out of them, but that didn't always do him any more good than skinning his own fingers. Plus, this was his dominant hand and he needed his damn thumb if he was going to make that loony fucker suffer.

By night, Psycho-Dean returned.

He smirked. "Still here, huh? What, couldn't find anything pointy enough?"

"Fuck off."

Psycho-Dean moved over to the mini-fridge, getting himself a beer. Dean tried not to stare wistfully at it as the the thirst and dryness in his mouth came back to the forefront of his attention. His stomach was bloated with hunger.

"So I've been thinkin'," Psycho-Dean began, twisting the bottle cap with his ring. There was a popping sound when it opened.

"Oh, you do that?"

Psycho-Dean ignored his barb. "You should come along on our next mission."

That made Dean wary and suspicious pretty quick. "Uh huh… and why is that?"

Psycho-Dean snorted jeeringly at his dubious expression. "Don't look at me like I'm going to take you to some alley and beat the shit out of you."

"Let's ask Sammy why I find that hard to believe." Dean's mouth curved into a satirical smile.

"I want to do you a favor," Psycho-Dean said, plowing right over his remark. He twirled the neck of his bottle between his fingers. "I want you to see our brother. See what he becomes, so that you could understand. Do things differently in your world when you get back to oh-nine."

Dean snorted derisively, glancing away with a shake of his head.

"You find a way to end Sam, in the next few months tops, for  _good_ ," Psycho-Dean continued, inclining back casually against his chair. The emphasis on 'for good' was puzzling, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to ask. "You can't do that? You say yes to Michael."

"Yeah, that's a great idea," Dean replied sardonically. "Say yes to Michael, fry half the planet by the ultimate battle of the feathery-dicks."

"Half the planet's better than no planet," Psycho-Dean answered, hollow and distant gaze rooted to a spot on the wall. "I spent too much time putting my hopes on getting rid of that freak, but his buddy Lucifer kept bringin' him back. Now the angels don't listen anymore." He took a swig of his beer, throat bobbing as he drank it down. He pulled it away and wiped at his mouth. "If I could do it all over again, I'd say yes to Michael in a heartbeat."

But Dean was still stuck on the 'getting rid of that freak' part, feeling nauseated in his gut to his throat. He swallowed down bile and something heavy in his throat. There was something heavy behind his eyes too, threatening to spill out.

There was no doubt as to why Sam ended up saying yes.

"You ruthless son of a bitch… you think you're a righteous man saving the world?" Dean bit out in a voice barely louder than a trembling whisper, sorrow and anger, running so deep he could barely speak, burning in his hard, red-rimmed eyes. His quivering mouth crumpled slightly with emotion, with loathing and disgust. "You're no better than any goddamn monster we've ever hunted."

Psycho-Dean hummed, a mocking, caustic little note of sound. He lifted his bottle to his mouth. "But Sam was, right?"

"He was. Better than you'll ever be," Dean said firmly, surely, voice still trembling infinitesimally with sorrow and ardent fury, red-rimmed eyes hard with it. Psycho-Dean took a swig of his drink. "And the last thing he deserved was a douchebag failure of a big brother who couldn't even keep him safe from himself. And believe me, when I'm out, I will hurt you. I will make you suffer for all of it, you understand me?"

Psycho-Dean snorted derisively, shaking his head. And then he huffed a sound akin to a laugh.

"I remember when I was like you," he said. "I remember when I, uh… you know, put up an act of being like you. Or like me, back when I was like you. Back when all I ever fucking thought about was Sammy, Sammy,  _Sammy_." He exhaled incredulously, like he couldn't believe he had ever done that. Had ever thought and cared so much about the only fucking thing that had ever made his shitty life brighter and better, the one reason he got up in the morning to face all this darkness in the world for most of his life, the only reason he ever even made it this far. "Man, you don't know how freeing it is when you just don't give a shit about someone like  _that_  anymore. Always whining and crying and sulking about—about  _something_. Always in trouble like some goddamn damsel in distress. Everything always being about him, about saving his worthless, ungrateful ass and keeping him as happy as you can with you."

Dean scoffed, snark and sarcasm. "Wow. So who broke your heart?"

Psycho-Dean just smirked condescendingly at him, like he knew what he was about to tell him was going to rip him apart more than anything else he could possibly do. His head turned away, all oiled joints, gaze sliding over to stare at a spot on the wall distantly.

"I just wanted to know what would happen, you know? See what he would do. Would he buy it?" He shrugged, looked like every bit of the sadistic, psychopathic piece of shit that he was. "And well, he did. Oh, he bought it  _hard_."

"Shut the fuck up," Dean gritted out, before he could stop it from coming out. He knew he wouldn't be able to handle it. Knew it would fucking hurt, like a hand closing into a fist around his heart. The bastard knew it too. "Just shut the fuck  _up_."

He didn't.

His mouth twisted into a sneer, blending with the barest quirk of a sick, somberly amused smile, a tinge of disgust flaring in his voidless eyes. His voice was low when he said, "It was the most pathetic thing I've ever seen." He gestured vaguely at his own face. "The way his face would brighten up, just because I would talk to him about some old memory or about a car model or some shit."

Dean could only look down to glower at the floor as if it was responsible for everything that had gone to shit and listen to everything he wished he never had to, jaw set against the image of his little brother, brokenly hopeful that he was getting his big brother back.

"I did it for nearly a week. And when I couldn't do it anymore, when it was over… he just laid there and… and cried. And I don't mean like his usual, quiet kind. I mean, like, full-out ugly bitch crying. All snot and hard, gasping sobs and mascara running down cheeks." He huffed, tilting his head. His hand stretched out, straight and taut, fingers tremulously curling into a fist one by one, clenching hard. His inclined head jerked slightly, like a little tic, all the darkness in his soul that Dean had been feeling in his episodes and his dreams flooding into the emptiness of his entranced gaze. "And you know what? It  _just_ —just pissed me off even more."

Dean's jaw clenched so hard that it hurt, swallowing down the pain in his throat and chest and blinking back the blur in his vision.

This was a man who was supposed to be him too, and he had let his little brother down in such unspeakable ways that Dean couldn't even…

Was this what Sam had been thinking all this time? That it was just Dean fucking with him all over again, just to see what would happen?

"Fuck you."

He hated that his voice broke, unsteady and raw and quiet. He hated the way it made that sadistic son of a bitch smile.

**…**

Psycho-Dean shoved him forward towards the direction of the headquarters. Dean rolled his eyes, having no choice but to comply. The dick had knocked him out so that he could chain both of his hands together.

Out in Camp Chitaqua as they moved through, Dean noticed something very strange, but unsurprising.

People were terrified of him (before the confusion promptly set in, at least, when they saw two of him). Soldiers and civilians alike under Psycho-Dean's tyrannical leadership. They avoided eye-contact with him, halted their conversations abruptly and went silent in his presence. They were tense and anxious, either fidgeting and trembling or stoic to conceal their true emotions. They moved out of his way when he walked through.

People were watching them with shock, disbelief and bewilderment.

But nobody raised any questions.

"It's a long story. And I ain't takin' inquiries," Psycho-Dean said as a general response to their murmuring chorus of confusion, stone-cold and authoritative. Nobody bothered pushing.

Dean saw Chuck in the crowd. The guy looked about ready to shit his pants. He also found Cas, who was dressed up in some kind of weird hipster ensemble. He also looked pretty stoned to Hell.

Did angels even get stoned?

Either way,  _that_  was his ride out of here. He needed to talk to Cas, but he could only do that if Psycho-Dean here would fuck off for a minute. As much as he wanted to attack and beat the shit out of him, he knew he wouldn't stand a chance against his captor, not with all these people around, who may or not be more loyal to their dickless leader than he knew.

But that didn't mean he wasn't going to put this son of a bitch down first chance he got.

The things he had done to Sammy… Dean wasn't walking out of here with him alive.

That was the rule. Anyone who hurt Sammy got hurt twice as bad, and the way this lunatic version of himself hurt his brother (when he should have been the one to do anything  _but_ , should have been the one there to fucking murder anyone else who tried) earned him a slow and painful death sentence.

He kept a sharp, watchful eye to snatch off any object that could unlock the cuffs.

Four people were present in the headquarters. That included Dean himself, Psycho-Dean, Hippie Cas and this really hot woman who Dean would have totally slept with if, well, circumstances were any better.

"Tonight, we kill the Devil," Psycho-Dean announced. He pulled out the Colt from his waistband. Dean's eyebrows went up to his hairline. "We have the weapon to kill Lucifer. We know where he is. The demon that we caught last week? He was one of the big guy's entourage. He knew."

The woman's voice piped up. "How do we know if that demon was telling the truth?"

"Oh, trust me. He wasn't lyin'," Psycho-Dean scoffed.

Hippie-Cas added to the answer. "We all know that our  _leader's_ —" There was a sarcastic emphasis on the word. "—enhanced interrogation tactics aren't a secret, Risa."

Dean lifted an eyebrow at the implications behind those words, glancing over at Psycho-Dean, even if he wasn't entirely surprised. Of course he was torturing again. As if the guy couldn't be any more screwed in the head.

"Lucifer is here," Psycho-Dean continued. "Now I know the block and the building." He pointed at it on the map laid out before them on the table.

"Oh, good. It's right in the middle of a hot zone," Cas said satirically.

"You got something to say?" Psycho-Dean countered.

"Your plan is reckless," Cas stated bluntly. Dean was pretty damn proud of him, even if he was kind of weird right now. "If it can even be called a plan at all. So we, uh, what, just walk in straight up the driveway, past all the demons and the Croats, and we shoot the devil?"

"Feel free to opt out if you're too much of a wuss for this," Psycho-Dean taunted, an underlying tinge of ridicule in his smile.

"He ain't wrong," Dean said, just to piss him off. Also because, yeah, Cas was right. It seemed to work a bit, because his vice-like grip tightened considerably around his bicep to bruising point.

"I'm coming," Cas replied, sighing slightly with a vague roll of his eyes. "But why is he?" He nodded at Dean. "I'm assuming he's you from the past, judging by the mild age-based difference in your appearance." Cas could figure out that he wasn't from this year by merely visual observation, but he didn't know if he was from their world or not. That didn't seem like a good sign. "If something happens to him, you're gone, right?"

"He's coming," Psycho-Dean replied simply, his voice hard and firm in a way that left no room for further objections.

"Well, I'll get the grunts moving," Cas offered.

**…**

"You don't like him much, do you?" Dean asked. Psycho-Dean had left him under Hippie Cas' watch temporarily with a threat of consequences if Dean wasn't here when he came back. Cas had responded with a remark of,  _yeah, yeah, you'll shoot me dead, like you do to everyone who even breathes wrong around here._ It made Dean wonder why these people were following this asshat in the first place. Psycho-Dean left with a taunting smirk and a,  _good dog_. "I mean, not that I blame you."

Cas looked at him strangely. "Why are you talking as if you two aren't the same people?"

"Because we're not," Dean replied. "Look, it's a long story, man. I'd tell you all about it but, uh… we're sorta short on time here. I'm the good twin, that's all you need to know."

"Another universe, then, I'm guessing," Cas drawled. "Because it sure as hell isn't possible in this one. Unless you're from way back, which I doubt because you don't look that young, so I'm guessing I was right the first time."

"Yeah." Dean nodded, and tried not to look too surprised as Cas using the word  _hell_  as a cuss. "Now, can you use your powers to get these handcuffs off of me?"

Cas shook his head. "Nope, sorry. Can't help you there. I lost all my angel mojo when heaven fell apart."

"Wait, so you're…" Dean frowned. "You're human now." It was a statement more than a question, seeking confirmation of it.

"Bingo," Cas answered. Dean had never in his life thought he would hear Cas say something like  _bingo_.

Dean sighed. "Well...do you have anything? Like a...a nail or a lockpick or…" He shook his arm in an urgent gesture. "I don't know— _something_?"

"No," Cas said, sounded almost apologetic about it. Almost. Dean didn't think he warmed up to him completely, which he supposed he had to understand since he'd been seeing a psycho with his face in his place for years. "Even if I did, he'd decapitate me for letting you escape."

Dean doubted that was merely some sort of figure of speech. If he could do that to Sam, he sure as hell could do it to Cas too.

"Tell me something. He's not a very lovable guy, so how come you still...you know, stick with him?"

Cas went momentarily silent at the question.

"Because I also know that he's the only one that can do it," he then finally conceded, begrudging, but quiet and earnest. "Stop Lucifer, I mean. All these people you're seeing… they're only alive and here because of him. Anyone that bailed, you almost always either saw them come back infected or find their dead bodies soon enough."

"So it's cause you're afraid of dying or becoming a Croat?"

Cas shook his head. "No. It's not that, exactly. I mean...this life of—of booze and drugs and women—it's trite at best for me. And believe me, I don't like being around him any more than you or anyone else does, but..." He sighed softly, glanced away to somewhere off to the side. "he knows what he's doing, and he's good at what he does. So I just want to help him end it."

Dean nodded. He still didn't agree, but he understood.

"And I..." Cas' blue eyes were suddenly hazy with something akin to sorrow. Grief. He swallowed. He schooled himself as soon as it came. "I always just think that Sam…" The name seemed to cause his features to twitch with pain. "Sam wanted it to end, you know?" He glanced down at his shoes, and it was too human and vulnerable for him, for a being that he had always been. "So I do it for him. More than anything, I think I do it for him."

Something inside of Dean softened. "Honestly, I don't think Sammy would have wanted you to do it by staying with someone like this."

"Maybe, but it's not like there's any other way," Cas huffed. He shrugged. His blue eyes looked haunted. "I couldn't save him from everything he went through for two whole years. And I couldn't save him from being burned to death in ten different ways. And I couldn't save him from a fate worse than death. So maybe… I don't know. Maybe stopping the apocalypse...finishing what Sam wanted to finish... this is the only way I can make it up to him."

**...**

Psycho-Dean nodded at the Jackson County Sanitarium. "There," he said. "Second-floor window. We go in there."

Risa glanced at him. "You… you sure about this?"

"They'll never see us comin'," Psycho-Dean answered, far too composed and calm. Dean saw right through it. "Trust me. Now, weapons check. We're on the move in five."

When everyone had left, Dean huffed, "You're lying to these people."

"'That so?" His stare was rooted up at the building.

"Yeah," he affirmed. "You're a twisted son of a bitch, but we still have the same lying expressions. So what the hell are you not tellin'?" Psycho-Dean rotated a glower towards him. "Well, maybe your posse would like to discuss their doubts with me too."

"How about you keep your damn mouth shut before I throw you to the Croats?" Psycho-Dean drawled, annoyance underlying the hollow tone.

And then Dean noticed it.

"Wait the hell a minute."

Psycho-Dean sighed, rolling his eyes.

"This place should be white-hot with Croats right about now," Dean pointed out, his gaze roaming around in bewildered observation. "So where are they?"

"They cleared a path for us," Psycho-Dean stated flatly, sounding bored and exasperated as he waited for Dean to catch on.

"It's a trap," Dean finished, brows furrowed with horrific realization. He looked at Psycho-Dean. "You're feeding these people to a meat grinder?"

"Give the boy his prize," Psycho-Dean snarled, smiling scornfully. "They divert the Croats. We go through the back and get that son of a bitch. You wanna go now?"

"What a surprise," Dean scoffed, shaking his head. "You're just as fucked in the head as I thought, aren't you?"

Psycho-Dean snorted. "You got any better ideas, genius?"

"Yeah, like not using innocent people as fucking decoys!" Dean snapped furiously, and then he lunged, throwing a blow with his bounded hands to the face with an anger deeper than he could pinpoint.

Psycho-Dean blocked his attack by catching his arm, twisting him around and getting him in a stranglehold. "This is where you're beginning to cross the limits of my patience," he hissed into his ear.

"Good," Dean sneered, teeth gritted against the force pulling his head back. He elbowed him in the gut as hard as he could with his still bound wrists. Psycho-Dean grunted in pain, releasing his grip and stumbling back.

Dean spun around and tried to kick him in the chest. Psycho-Dean swiftly recovered and dodged the attack, catching his leg and kicking him on the side of his other knee forcefully, causing him to drop to the ground with a strangled grunt. He ducked out of the way just as Psycho-Dean threw a fist at his head and tackled his legs head-on as hard as he could with his bound arms, forcing him to drop to the ground with him.

The sudden fall, colliding the ground with his head, left Psycho-Dean momentarily dazed. Dean used the chains on his wrist to make the blow to his face as jarring as possible, reached underneath him and instantly snatched the gun off from the waistband of his other self's jeans with a strong, fast pull, and then backed away quickly at a safe distance.

Psycho-Dean groaned, blinking profusely.

"You really wanna do this now?" Psycho-Dean growled out, forcing his voice to work past the daze he was still stuck in. He shifted over slightly on his side, clutching his head with one hand, the other palm braced against the ground. "When I'm so close to ending it? I've been training for this for years, you know. You don"t let me take him on, you'd set the future of this world and all of this would go away."

"I don't care." A world like this, Dean thought, deserved to burn anyway.

Psycho-Dean struggled to raise his head towards him, but when he finally did, his eyes landed on him, at the gun aimed firmly at him by chained hands, and he laughed caustically. His cheek was bleeding, trickling down to his jaw, and already festering into a bruise around the cut.

"You won't kill me that easy. Someone like me, you'd wanna utilize a little bit of those lessons on that Alistair taught us." Psycho-Dean chuckled. He slowly pushed himself into a sitting position on his arms. He tilted his head, oil-smooth and eerie. "You're a bleeding-heart, moronic son of a bitch, but I'm still you. You won't do it now."

"Believe me, asshole. You don't wanna test me any more than you already have."

But Dean knew that he was right.

"Make em' suffer, right?" Psycho-Dean sneered. "Anyone that hurt Sammy got hurt twice as bad. That's what we did."

"And that's what I  _still_  do, you sick son of a bitch," Dean spat out. "You're the one that stopped. That  _failed_. You couldn't keep your shit together and you hurt your own flesh and blood kid brother. Your own fucking kid!"

Psycho-Dean let out a condescending sigh, rolling his eyes. "See, your heart could bleed all it wants for him. But it doesn't change what he is, what he's done, and what's in his blood. And when you see him now? As the Devil himself?" Psycho-Dean sounded certain, unconcerned that Dean wouldn't see things his way. Dean's finger ached to pull the trigger, just to shut him up. "You'll see it. What he's been meant for and made to be. Pure evil."

"The key," Dean demanded.

"We've already established that you won't shoot me," Psycho-Dean taunted.

"I'll put a bullet in your damn leg," Dean snarled. He wouldn't want that. He wouldn't be able to battle Lucifer if he was a compromised gimp, after all.

"You really wanna do this?" Impatience was creeping into his voice and his face. "Put  _him_  over an entire fucking planet?"

"I want the key," Dean persisted firmly. "On the ground. Slide it over."

Psycho-Dean's jaw clenched, but he complied, tugging the key out of his jeans' pocket, placing it on the ground and and flicking it over to his feet.

Dean slowly lowered and picked it up, gaze flickering cautiously between his captive and the key that would set his hands free. He swiftly snatched the key up when his hands could reach it within the limits of the chains, gun pointed from a low position at him.

And then Psycho-Dean lunged, a rapid blur of movement, tackling him to the ground. The gun went off, a loud, explosive sound. It had been jolted out of his hand. He didn't know if it hit his target, but it probably didn't.

Because the last image he saw was of that same gun coming at him, brief and sharp agony shooting across his head.

And then there was nothing.

**...**

Dean woke up on the ground. The explosive sound of a gunshot emanated from the building, jolting into his chest like a painless bullet. He sat up and pulled himself up to his feet.

Lightning crackled and thunder rumbled from the sky. Dean ran towards the sound of the fired bullet.

He came upon the sight of a white shoe on Psycho-Dean's throat.

His gaze traveled up the shoe and landed on Sam's face, slicked brown hair and a serene expression on his features. His heart jolted for a brief, confused, delirious moment at seeing his baby brother here in this wretch of a future.

Before he sobered, in less than a split-second, and realized that it wasn't his baby brother at all.

Lucifer shifted his weight on Psycho-Dean's throat almost gently. His neck snapped with a soft crack. The Colt lay a few feet away from him. Dean's heart was hammering rapidly against his sternum.

It was poetic justice, he supposed, as he looked at Psycho-Dean's lifeless features; how his end came at the hands of the very monster he created by treating him like one, beneath the foot of a flawed, but tender-hearted kid that he had wronged so horribly.

Lucifer turned around, looking at him through Sammy's hazel eyes. "Oh. Hello Dean."

**…**

Zachariah zapped him back to his year.

And he tried to convince him how saying yes to Michael was the one and only way to save the planet. Dean didn't fall for his bullshit. Pissed him off enough for him to come after him like the ugly old witch from Hansel and Gretel.

"Well, I'll just have to teach it again! Because I got you now, boy, and I'm never letting you—"

And then Cas hauled him away like the wonderful, saving grace the bastard was.

Dean turned around and found the angel. "That's pretty nice timing, Cas," he huffed.

"We had an appointment," Cas responded.

**…**

Dean felt a throb of sorrow and yearning in his chest somewhere too deep to reach and pinpoint, pulsing slow and steady with his every heartbeat. He sat on the bed, staring at the name in his contacts on the phone screen.

The things he had learned from the future, from the heartless, deranged man that he met that was supposed to be him and was nothing like him...

Psycho-Dean told him that Sammy would fall off the wagon at some point in time this year. That meant that Sam started drinking demon blood again, for whatever reason, but it made zero sense. There was no way Sam would ever willingly poison himself again with that vile substance after witnessing the consequences of doing so. So unless he did it under duress, or unless there had been some sort of misunderstanding, there was nothing that could ever make him want to go back. Trust issues or not, Dean knew that much about the kid at least.

" _I wasted too much time putting my hopes on getting rid of that freak, but his buddy Lucifer kept bringin' him back_."

The kind of life his baby brother had lived here, that he had ahead of him, once he left and that monster probably came back (even though he hoped to whatever was listening that he just fucking  _wouldn't_ )…

How could he leave?

Just leave him to that horrendous fate? Just leave and let all those things happen to him? Let that bastard come back and pick up right where he left off? And then, what, grow worse by tenfold if Sam somehow, maybe, relapsed again? Let him essentially torture the kid, killing him over and over in god knows what kinds of unimaginable ways until Sammy just…

Just broke.

He was supposed to protect him, keep him safe. Even if it was in another world, it was his job, and it fell on him even more so because the him of this world certainly wasn't doing it. On the contrary, the piece of shit was doing the exact opposite of it.

Now, the kid's skinny ass and his damn kicked puppy eyes and the damn bruises that he just couldn't stand seeing after too many days of it (just made his fury skyrocket and his sorrow wedge between his ribs like something solid) made his overprotective big brother instincts go into overdrive in a way it probably hadn't for quite a while. Now all he wanted was to take all that hurt and weariness away, all that terror away. He wanted him to be the Sam he knew, the Sam he was supposed to be, full of quiet strength and boldness and gentle confidence. Not this—this lost, defeated and tired shadow of him. He looked too sad all the time and it made Dean really fucking sad too, made him want to just grab the damn kid and never let him go.

But how could he go back to him?

He wasn't sure he'd be doing any favors to Sam by returning to him. He was putting him in danger by doing that too. The large part of it  _was_  not wanting to cause any sort of pain to Sammy (especially not after all the pain he had already suffered) but the other part of it, the more selfish part of it, was not wanting to cause any sort of pain to Sammy because he knew he would never be able to forgive himself, would never be able to live with his own hands being responsible for something like that.

That was why he could never go back.

Dean stared at the name, 'Sammy', on his phone screen, craved to talk to his brother to the point of feeling heartsick. He couldn't go back to him because he needed to go back to his own Sammy, because he needed to keep him safe from himself, but he—he needed to hear the kid's voice. Talk to him. Maybe finally tell him the truth (if he could force himself to through whatever mojo was holding him back), because he couldn't stand the thought that Sam had been thinking that it was all just some sick game he had been playing all this time, but it made terrible, awful sense too, why Sam hadn't questioned it as much.

He wanted to knock some sense into his head about what a moron he had been all this time for staying with that lunatic fucking son of a bitch.

So he called. Finally mustered up the courage to hit the dial button. He put the phone to his ear, jitters and nerves making his gut clench slightly. He had no idea how Sammy would react to him calling, had no idea if he would even want to talk to him anymore (he should hope so. That would be a lot better for Sammy's sake).

When the line on the other end picked up, it wasn't Sam's voice that talked.

"Hey, Dean-o." And then every muscle in Dean's body was paralyzed momentarily.

The voice on the other end sounded like someone he knew, someone from the sea of people that they've met from his past, but his mind couldn't assign a face or a name to the voice. However, the man, or the thing, did seem to know  _him_. They've made a lot of enemies over the years, so he had no idea who could come after them now.

"Who the hell are you?" Dean bit out, a heated blaze of anger and overprotectiveness coursing through his body. He didn't know who was on the other line, but if he touched a goddamn hair on Sammy's head… "Why do you have my brother's phone?"

And then there was a high, agonized scream, ripped out of the throat in the background, before it dissipated into heaves and pants of pain.

It sounded far too much like Sam.

And it made Dean's heart halt painfully to a stop, before it started speeding up, jack-hammering rapidly against his sternum.

"You son of a bitch!" Dean gritted out, eyes wide with fear and wild with fury. "I'll rip your fucking lungs out if you don't let go of him, I swear. I'll kill you if you hurt him again, you hear me, you goddamn bastard!"

"Huh… that's a little shocking to hear," the man on the other end huffed, an underlying mix of astoundment as well as incredulity in his tone, yet absolutely unconcerned, as if he didn't entirely believe Dean would really come for him, tear his guts out of his esophagus and mutilate him dead for making his baby brother scream like that. This bastard didn't have a fucking  _clue_  whose little brother he fucked with and what a mistake that was. "We heard a lot of rumors about your...unending  _love_  for your sick freak of a brother. Well, either way, this little display of overprotective, 'righteous' fury won't last long once you get here. Come to Philadelphia by 9 or 10am if you're, uh… interested. We'll send you the coordinates on where."

His heart was shot up to his throat, panic flooding his body. Fuck. Fuck, what if all he ended up finding was his kid brother's corpse once he got there? He was in fucking Maine at ten pm, nearly nine hours away, which was enough time for them to do a lot more, to go too far. He didn't even know if Cas would pick up his damn phone right now since he was on his God-hunt.

He felt like throwing up.

He forced bravado and composition that he didn't feel into his voice, even as it broke ever so slightly due to the dryness in his throat, as he demanded, "Who the hell are you? You tell me who the hell you are or I swear to God—"

There was another scream in the background, torn out and full of excruciating anguish, fading off into more heaves of pain before they became low, tremulous sobs. There were muffled cackles of laughter from somewhere distant on the other line.

He was going to fucking kill them all.

The sounds were abruptly cut off. The other line hung up and began beeping before Dean could yell threats at the twisted son of a bitch some more. His hand tightened around his phone, his eyes squeezing shut as his jaw set in an effort to control himself. The phone emitted a low crack, and he released it to drop to the mattress before he could split it in half.

It had been over a week since they had separated. He spent four of his days in the future. He didn't know when they took Sam, didn't know in how many of these days they made his brother scream that way.

Maybe he shouldn't have left. He should have fucking known Sam was still healing, wasn't in the best shape to properly defend himself against anything or anyone that could come after him, not when he had still been nursing so many wounds on his body before Dean left him alone. Some part of him logically understood that it was a necessity, for Sam's own good, but the rest of him kept hearing those screams echo in his head, kept wondering about what they were doing to his little brother and trying not to imagine the horrors that were intruding his thoughts in contribution, kept thinking that if only he had been  _there_ , none of this would have happened.

His phone vibrated a tune. He looked at the screen. One new message. It was the coordinates.

And that was…

Something about this wasn't right. Downright odd. It didn't occur to him then, too engrossed in his rage and guilt and terror, all emotions that were still there, but now with rationality and sense breaking through.

Why were they telling him where to find Sam (not his body. Hell no. He was not going to entertain that thought because he would find his baby brother  _alive_. Hurt, for which he would get his vengeance, but alive…)?

Even if in this world, he was an unhinged asshole that didn't care about Sammy (little did they know, the kid now had him and he was going to turn all those crazy fuckers' insides out), why would they call him over to that place when they could just kill him?

There was clearly a catch. Couldn't be ransom, because there was no mention of that. If that was true, though, if there really was something they wanted out of him, then maybe that meant that they wouldn't kill Sam before he got there.

A thought occurred to him, a memory.

"... _but his buddy Lucifer kept bringin' him back_ …"

That had to mean there was nothing to worry about, right? No matter what happened, he would still have Sammy back alive. The only thing he had to worry about was saving him all the anguish.

But in a moment so close to losing his little brother in present reality, the terrible risk of it hung over his head and the doubts began to set in as to whether the future he had seen had ever even been  _real_. Maybe it was just Zachariah fucking with him. Could he really put it past that bald eagle? Lucifer was a fallen angel. So not entirely an archangel on the same level as Michael. So did he even  _have_  that power to resurrect the dead?

Hell, was Sam even Lucifer's vessel in the first place? It definitely could be another ploy to make Dean fall for their trickery and say yes. As if these bastards hadn't played with them enough. Who would have thought Lilith was the final seal? Yet, they lied about that, for months, and they made it convincing all throughout until they had achieved their goal.

He sure as hell wasn't going to take any risk of finding out that Sam would never come back to him.

He traced back the conversation, evaluating and analyzing it word by word, searching for more clues to gather data on these sons of bitches.

The man on the phone knew who Dean was, for one. So it had to be someone he knew too, or someone his father knew, someone the Winchesters had crossed paths with either directly or indirectly. He also sounded familiar to him, even if he couldn't place who it was, so that was another reason to believe it could be someone from his contacts.

"... _sick freak of a brother_."

That was a sense of so-called righteousness right there. Sounded a lot like he knew about Sam, things nobody else should. If that was the case, then he also firmly believed they were doing something right by hurting his little brother (and oh, how wrong he was). His choice of words indicated that he was attributing him to something abnormal and strange.

Hunters?

Fuck. How did he… how did he not think about that? Demons had big mouths and things spread around quickly in the hunting community, so of course they would find out and come after Sam under the idiotic, misguided notion that he was the evil antichrist.

" _Well, either way, this little display of overprotective, 'righteous' fury won't last long once you get here_."

" _If you're, uh… interested_."

That sounded a bit like they were counting on him being his psycho douchebag version of himself, since they already heard the stories about him. The man didn't sound like he had any grudges against Dean, so he doubted they wanted to take him captive too. If anything, he sounded more like he had initially expected Dean to be on their side, and he sounded sure that if Dean wasn't right now, then he would once he reached there.

So he wanted  _Psycho-Dean_  to see something. Dean could put up an act if that meant saving his brother. He wouldn't have to if Cas would pick up his fucking cellphone though.

Goddamnit, when would Sammy catch a break? This universe particularly seemed to have a knack for shitting on the kid.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mild torture, mentions of past abuse

 

Before all the fun had started, Tim had examined Sam's physical state closely, eyes flicking up and down. The cuts and bruises on his face, the old, mild swelling still puffing his faintly bruised eyes and scabbed cheeks, the faded finger-shaped marks all around his arms and neck, the healing or healed wounds disappearing down into his shirt, the deeply pink scars from the past inflictions that couldn't all have been from monsters (not unlike him, he thought with a snort) alone.

Tim had heard the tales going around the community. Sam Winchester, once to be careful of even  _looking_  at wrong lest his older brother saw it and got on your ass about it, was mauled black and blue. Maybe it was just a spectacularly bad hunt. The bruises on Dean Winchester's fists could be explained away by that too, possibly obtained by rescuing his brother. That was what Sam answered with whenever questioned anyway.

But then there was also the docile way Sam hunched in on himself around his brother, always following behind and never looking up, never looking at Dean. The wisps of snarling words that they caught from the older brother to the younger, how he never quite met his eyes. And then there was the fact that sometimes Dean didn't keep those vulgar, unkind words and caustic barbs too private and low, a deliberate, knowing effort to humiliate him in public.

Always quiet, they said about the younger Winchester. He let his older brother do all the talking and never interrupted with a word, never butted into conversations. Throughout the interactions, at any opportunity given, the younger man often bore the brunt of his brother's underlying, backhanded comments, all his faults and mistakes exposed for hunts that led to dire consequences. Their own Freddy here had been a distant witness to Dean Winchester's hostile behavior towards his brother. He was the one that came up with the idea, in fact.

Rumor had it that Dean Winchester, once willing to go to any lengths to keep his brother safe, that loved his brother more than it was considered healthy for how much two brothers, let alone two people, should love each other, loathed that same brother without end now and he showed it openly.

Now that Tim knew why, he couldn't say he blamed him. This demon-fucker definitely had it all coming.

Their father was a good friend to him, even though he lost touch with him quite a while back. Boy, if he knew what his own son had become, had always been right under his nose, he would surely be joining him in this crusade to dish out justice and punishment.

Tim supposed he would have to settle for his brother instead.

"Been hearing a lot of stories these days about the great dynamic duo. Quite the handiwork your brother has done on you, Sammy," Tim had jibed.

Sam had shown no expression. No anger or denial or satirical remark. He had simply looked away, defeated and tired instead of everything else he had been in all that time. That was enough proof that the gossip going around the community held at least some weight.

Other than that, other than every mention of Dean, the freak was all sarcastic, smartass comebacks and stubborn bravado. So Tim used that to his advantage, took this weakness and made sure to exploit it as much as possible just to keep his mouth shut, just to see that sorrow and hurt, as hard as he tried to lock it away from the rest of his features, flicker in his gaze. Tim found it quite satisfying.

And well, he was all sarcastic, smartass comebacks and stubborn bravado until they held down his thrashing body to the cot and forced him to swallow down demon blood.

He lost all his fight after that.

The first day, he spat it all out like the first time him and Reggie tried to get him to drink it down, right in their faces, angry and pigheaded. They had to slit another demon throat for more, and that took them nearly an entire day of their time. Todd, Kim and Reggie stayed behind to take the responsibility of making the piece of shit pay his penance for that and everything else.

By the third day, they ruined him so much that he could barely move.

He still writhed and struggled as hard as he could when they gave him the day's dose of demon blood. He did, initially. But it didn't take him too long to break from the pain, to tire out from the blood loss and weakness and from causing himself even more anguish than he already was in.

Cried like a little bitch when it was all over, trying to wipe all the blood off his mouth with his trembling arms desperately and frantically, gasping and weeping hard, even as the handcuffs cut and shaved at his skin and it was difficult to reach. When he realized he couldn't, that he was merely smearing it all even more over his face, he curled up on his side on the cot as far as he could (which wasn't very far) and sobbed into the thin, springy mattress.

Later, he was found trying to shove his fingers down his throat to make himself throw it up, so they took his hands and shoved them into boiling water instead.

Not like he didn't want to chug that sulfuric poison all down anyway. Dean needed to see that.

And he needed to do the honors after he did.

Even if this thing was fucked up in the head, he still loved his brother more than anything. And being taken out at the hands of that very person? That would be the worst thing he could imagine, and a truly befitting punishment for the bloodsucker's crimes.

It wasn't about the demons anymore. Oh no, they were long gone by now. But the root of it all, of what had happened to Steve, had always been Sam Winchester, for what he brought upon the Earth.

So after what he did to the world? What happened to Steve because of it all? This was far less than what he deserved, in fact.

And after all the disgusting deeds he had done, his ultimate betrayal towards Dean, Tim had no doubt that his brother would agree.

Before Tim answered that phone call, he had asked Sam tauntingly, "What's Dean going to think of all that blood on your face, Sammy?"

It was almost a pathetic sight, if he didn't already know what Sam was and how dangerous he could be. The newly swollen, bruised eyes widened just barely as he shook his head adamantly and desperately, the red substance of his toxic, disgusting addiction spread all over his crumpling face and his arms from when he tried to clean it off and on the collar of his torn up shirt. He didn't try to correct his usage of the nickname either. "Please… d-don't. Don't, I…" He swallowed, trembling slightly. His voice was cracking. "He can't know. Please."

That was the first time he had begged in all that time. There were screams and cries and pleas of 'don't's and 'stop's when it got too much after a while.

But there was never a 'please'. He had been too proud and haughty for that until now, to beg for mercy and leniency and forgiveness the way he should have.

He was terrified of Dean Winchester, however. Even more terrified of him than he had been of any torture being inflicted on his body. Tim was going to use that to cause this sick freak the maximum amount of suffering he could.

Tim turned around and walked away to pick up that call.

And he did not find what he hoped for.

"Who the hell are you?" The rough, deep voice of Dean Winchester on the other line asked in response to his greeting. There was an underlying anger and, dare he say, protectiveness to it. He could certainly be mistaken though. Otherwise this could not be the man he had been hearing all these tales of, and therefore, he could not serve his purpose. "Why do you have my brother's phone?"

So he still called him that, still considered him family. On the word of several witnesses of the Winchesters in the past couple of months, Dean was adamant in disowning him from that title.

From the back, Sam screamed loudly, high and agonized, as Fred swiftly wrenched his thumb out of his joints. This only agitated the elder Winchester as he began hurtling threats from the other end.

"You son of a bitch!" Dean yelled on the other end. Was this really the man he needed for what he wanted to achieve? Had he changed? Or could it all just be an act? Why, though, he couldn't make sense of, so it couldn't be. "I'll rip your fucking lungs out if you don't let go of him, I swear. I'll kill you if you hurt him again, you hear me, you goddamn bastard!"

Tim couldn't quite figure it out.

The man he was hearing on the phone was drastically different from the picture painted by the freak in front of him. His reaction towards hearing about his brother's captivity was surprising and unexpected, to say the least. He couldn't entirely tell if it had all been some sort of a pretense on Dean's part, for whatever unknown reason, or if this monster handcuffed to a cot had somehow, for whatever unknown reason, been playing with him this entire time.

Yet, all the undeniable proof that he had, and over it all, every instance of his eyes flooding with concealed sorrow and hurt at the mention of his brother and the terror in the freak's eyes at the thought of  _Dean_  finding out about his ingestion of demon blood pushed him to speak further, even as it didn't entirely make sense to him. "Hm… that's a little shocking to hear." He glanced over at Sam. He was looking at him, agony still creating lines in his features, face flushed and sweaty.

But Sam was looking at  _him_ , panic flooding through the pain in his widened gaze. More afraid of Tim spilling the beans on the phone to Dean than he was of Fred wrenching all of his fingers out of their joints. That couldn't be an act, couldn't be merely deception for whatever purpose as Tim had been wondering briefly a few seconds ago.

"We heard a lot of rumors about your...unending  _love_  for your sick freak of a brother. Well, either way, this little display of overprotective, 'righteous' fury won't last long once you get here. Come to Philadelphia by 9 or 10 am if you're, uh… interested. We'll send you the coordinates on where."

Fred grabbed the next finger on his blistered hand. His frantic, anxious eyes jerked away from Tim, glancing over at Fred instead. He tried to move his hand away, out of Fred's grip as he shook his head in trepidation, pain flashing across his screwing features due to the burns, but it was feeble efforts. He was weakened, generally from the shortage of food and blood loss and from the injuries as well as from his last course of anguish.

Fred held his middle finger firmly.

"Who the hell are you?" Dean's growling voice on the other end snarled, nearly trembling with malicious fury and wild, desperate fear. "You tell me who the hell you are or I swear to  _God_ —"

In the next minute, the warehouse was filled with another anguished scream. It went on for three long seconds before they slowly waned to dry heaves and gasping pants, and then soft sobs. His friends laughed among themselves from where they were sitting off to the side, shooting glances at Sam as they did.

Tim hung up the phone.

None of it made any sense.

The way Sam reacted to every mention of Dean, the fear quaking in his hands, in his gaze, whenever he teased him with the idea of disclosing to Dean about him chugging down demon blood, the mourn and anguish burning in them… it couldn't be a mere pretense.

It seemed risky after that, and he was full of doubts about his plan, even as the veracity of all the stories seemed unquestionable judging by  _his_  reactions. Yet, the elder Winchester was not what he expected.

Even so, Tim thought that, surely, he would be useful to them once he saw the demon blood all over his demon-sucking brother's face and clothes.

By the time he returned back to his fellows, they were on Sam's last finger. He was looking about ready to pass out.

He caught sight of Tim, his eyes darting between him and his phone, too exhausted and entrapped in the remnants of his anguish to display his panic and fear any further. Instead, he looked ready to break down, inhales shuddering as his eyes grew wet with unshed tears, even as he tried to school it away with a doleful frown, blinking hard up at the ceiling, clenching his jaw when his chin quivered.

"Don't worry, Sam," Tim said in mock-reassurance when he caught the expression. "Haven't told him yet. I'd like to keep the surprise for when he comes."

Sam remained silent for a moment.

"He won't come," he finally spoke. Swallowed when his voice cracked from his dry throat, breathlessly weary, but he sounded as sure about what he said as the sun came out to shine. "So you should just kill me now."

And that only convinced Tim of all he needed to be sure of.

**…**

Sam wasn't afraid of dying.

He had made peace with the concept of death a while ago. In this line of work, when he realized that there was no way out of it for him, he had no choice but to.

In his younger years, he had seen far too much death and loss (not his own losses, but of others. He had never really had many people to lose other than his family and Bobby), and that had been difficult to live with. The nightmares he had suffered from then had often gained inspiration from these experiences.

He often dreamt of dying that way, suddenly and unexpectedly and painfully. Bloody and full of sorrow and tragedy.

More recurring were the dreams of his father dying that way.

But the worst of all had been of  _Dean_  dying that way.

He couldn't bear any of it. He couldn't bear the thought that one day he would have to watch those dreams become reality.

So he ran. He ran far, far away from the place where he would have to. Away from the people he was terrified of losing the most.

When he was pulled back into the throes of this life, and for  _good_  after the death of his father, he realized that he would have to accept the truth of these dreams, at the very least of his own death (because he would be there to make sure that it wouldn't happen to Dean). And eventually he did. Eventually it stopped being so scary to him. It had to happen some day, after all, and for people like him, it had to happen sooner than he thought and wanted.

Eventually he began to welcome the thought of it too.

He couldn't tell since when it had started, exactly. Maybe it started after the first time he died and came back to Dean having no longer than a year in his life, because he gave his soul up to save  _him_ , and he kept feeling like he just didn't deserve this life that he got back, like he wasn't worth it. He was certainly not worth his brother's  _soul_. Not worth spending an eternity in Hell for. On top of that, he knew he wouldn't be able to last throughout a life in which Dean was not there.

Maybe it had started  _after_  he lost Dean (after he lost everything). He had barely been able to bear to breathe in a life without his brother, in a life that he hadn't ever been able to even  _imagine_  for the past two decades he had been alive with him, that had then become the dark, horrible and devastating reality of his life.

A life that had taken a far too great price to be returned to him.

All he wanted in that year, in those four months, was to be dead back in Cold Oak.

These past couple of months, ever since he had changed, that had been what Dean wanted.

And that was all Sam wanted these days too.

Sam wasn't exactly suicidal though. He just knew that if he died tomorrow, it wouldn't matter to him.

Sam wasn't afraid of dying. Not really.

But in these past couple of months, he  _had_  grown to be afraid of dying in a certain way, at the hands of someone in particular. It wasn't death itself that he feared, but the idea that the last thing he would see would be Dean's face, full of that deep abhorrence and utter disgust, that he had only ever reserved for the big monsters, and now, for him. The idea that he would be killed by the person that still mattered most to him.

That was what he dreamt of most now. Dean, standing over him with a gun pointed at his face, or a knife held above him, or drenching him in gasoline and burning him alive, or throwing him into a grave and pulling the dirt over him.

Those were the dreams now that he was always afraid would turn into reality.

He had been afraid of Dean deciding that he had had enough of him, that he was sick and tired of keeping him around, that he wasn't worth standing anymore even though he was barely even doing it (until he decided to leave, at least).

But he had known that even if Dean did decide one day that he wanted to cut Sam's existence short once and for all, he wouldn't be able to bring himself to fight against it, to bring himself to run from it. Not only because he couldn't, but because he wouldn't have the right to.

Whatever act he had kept up those last couple of days would be over.

Tomorrow, assuming Dean decided to even come, which Sam doubted highly because Dean, the Dean he was now after what Hell had done to him, would never bother to drive out miles to come for him, even if it was to end him. Then again, he didn't  _really_  know because Dean might just loathe him that much.

He didn't know what was worse.

But assuming Dean decided to come, Sam might face the day that his nightmares would become reality, because he knew.

He knew that as soon as Dean saw him, found out about what he had done, what they had made him do, it would be the end of it. The last straw. Dean had promised him before on numerous occasions that if he ever caught Sam going back to his old ways, if he even  _suspected_  it, he would kill him where he stood. Sam had never been under the misconception that it was an empty, hyperbolic threat.

This was it.

He had demon blood in him and all over him. That was all the reason Dean needed to put him down.

...

**Real Universe**

A third of a month had elapsed. They found nada on how to restore everything back to normal.

The verbal torment had become a part of Sam's daily routine after three weeks of it.

Some of it, he could brush off easily, like the death threats and the graphic mutilation images. Those were things he had spent his entire life hearing from monsters and aggressive humans alike, even if this Dean's were a bit more creative and a lot darker in comparison.

Not that there wasn't still at least a mild pang of hurt when it was all coming from a man that was still his brother in nearly every aspect, besides a few tiny differences that he was a bit of a psycho and loathed Sam with every fibre of his being.

But it wasn't hard to forget when he thought of his own Dean. His own Dean was nothing like this, nothing like the cruel, acidic and cold man that this one was. His Dean was angry at him, and he was depressed and weary and disappointed, but he was still the best person Sam would ever know. It had been hard to remember these days at the point that they were in their relationship, what with how closed off and aloof his brother had been (for good reason) towards him, but his own Dean still cared about him more than anyone else did and would ever do. He couldn't help but pity the poor bastard version of himself that had to get stuck with this one.

Others, he would spend the entire day replaying over and over in his mind, feeling like a knife had been twisted into his chest. It would make him wonder how that other version of him survived hearing things like that all the time from his big brother, feeling like  _this_  all the time.

"Why do you hate me so much?" Sam asked. It wasn't a question born of his natural sadness and hurt at Dean's animosity towards him, but rather from a genuine curiosity to know what exactly went so horribly wrong, besides everything in his own world, that Dean had become—well,  _this_. Sam watched him eat from where he leaned against the wall. It reminded him that he was still human. "I mean, was it… was it the…" It was difficult to talk about it, still, his mistakes (sins, really) of the past year, to mention them blatantly and outright. It was difficult even more so because he would be giving this Dean another opportunity to mess him up inside with his crude, disparaging words and deprecating insults, as if he even needed any.

But he wanted to know.

"The demon blood?" he finally managed to get out, his voice quiet. He mentally steeled himself against whatever the other man would respond with, who was staring at him right now with his characteristic voidless gaze while he chewed. He didn't eat with the same zest his own Dean did. If anything, he looked like he ate more out of a basic survival necessity than anything. "Starting the apocalypse? Or was it something else that happened before that? Or after, I… I don't know."

Dean responded dryly, "Ever think that you're just annoying as fuck and I got sick of your ass after dealing with it for twenty-six years?"

Sam rolled his eyes. He supposed he shouldn't have expected any actual, proper answers.

"Yeah, well, imagine my predicament, having to deal with  _your_  ass for twenty-six years," he huffed, trying to make light of the comment. He didn't really know what else to do, how else to respond.

Dean snorted in this mocking, caustic way, like he thought Sam was worth nothing more than a piece of dirt on his shoe, and trying too hard to act like he was anything more than that. "The only reason you got balls here is 'cause I'm the one in chains." He leaned forward, a hollow smile curving at his lips. Sam's skin crawled uneasily, disquietude slithering up his spine as it always did whenever he looked too hard at those frigid eyes, whenever he heard him talk (and give away implications of Sam's life in the other world). Green eyes like frozen ice narrowed as he inclined his head. "Where I come from, you can't even look at me straight."

**…**

"I want a deal."

Sam's steps halted where he stood, on the verge of exiting the panic room.

He turned around and raised an eyebrow, eying Dean's casual and perpetually indifferent body language. "No offense, but you don't exactly look like you're in any position to bargain," Sam retorted. "But alright, I'll humor you. What deal?"

"You let me out." Sam snorted at that. Right, as if  _that_  was going to happen. "And I give you my oath that I'll be on my best behavior. Maybe even help you out with this mess of a situation, because clearly, you're taking your sweet time gettin' anywhere with it."

Sam waited.

When nothing further was said, he asked a puzzled, "That's it?"

"That's it," Dean repeated. This was the most normal conversation they've had, shockingly. "What'd you expect exactly? A kidney or something?"

"I don't know. Something I might actually consider?" Sam shrugged. "Even if I agreed, it's not like I can trust you to keep your word."

"Well, you can trust that I'm done with this solitary confinement shit." Dean scoffed. "Makes me think too much." He instantly looked like he wanted to take that back, the closest equivalent of regret on his face, which was nothing more than a slight purse of his lips and a dart of a diverted glance. The pause was merely a second and a half too long, but Sam noticed. He also noticed the barest flicker of something across his face. He couldn't tell what it was, too quick to come and go, too vague and controlled on his vacant expression, but it was something that didn't exactly fit on him. "And I'd like to get back to where I came from."

The thing that was most off about this entire scene was just how  _normal_  Dean sounded. The frigidity in his gaze was still there, the darkness that practically radiated off of him from his soul casting shadows over his face, the malice and spite that was seemingly being restrained in favor of getting his way… but the lack of vitriolic threats and brutally satirical jibes and sneering insults, of venomous comments that get under his skin in a way only Dean's words could...

And the way he talked could have been passed off for...well, normal.

This had to be some sort of a trick.

"Makes you think too much?" Sam echoed. That was a strange phrase coming out of  _his_  mouth. What did he even mean by that? Think of what? "And being stuck in the wrong universe has barely fazed you these past three weeks." Sometimes Sam would check in through the rectangular gap of the panic room door with hour intervals, and he would find Dean just sitting there staring at walls the exact same way he did the hour before, cold and apathetic. He looked nearly catatonic, but not really, because within the next three seconds, he would turn his head, slow and liquid-smooth, to look emptily, green eyes like frozen ice the way they usually were, at Sam's eyes staring back at him through the gap, as if he could sense him there, even if Sam made sure not to make a sound when he walked or slid the gap open. The quiet put Sam on the edge more than any noise ever could. "So what's  _really_  going on?"

"Gets  _really_  fucking boring in here is what's really going on. It's driving me crazy." Sam held back the retort that rose in his mind at that. "So are we doing this or not?"

"I want to know the truth."

Dean snarled like a wild animal, finally reaching the limit of how long he can control himself as he jolted forward belligerently, handcuffs pulling him back. "Do you  _ever_  stop being a fucking bitch about everything?"

He wanted to get out of this room. This world.  _Bad_. Sam could see it.

That was what would have been the natural response for anyone though, but Dean's was too delayed.

And  _this_  was the closest thing this Dean could get to desperate.

"What did you mean when you said that staying here makes you 'think too much'?" Sam inquired, crossing his arms over his chest. "Something you don't want to think about?"

"I ain't looking for a shrink, jackass."

"Is there something you're afraid of?" Sam thought of the twitch in his features about a few minutes ago. Had it been fear?

"Like  _what_?" he gritted out.

"That's what I want you to tell me."

"I'm  _not_." Dean was denying it a bit too adamantly, especially for someone like him, so Sam's assumption was clearly getting to him. Maybe he even almost,  _almost_  sounded like himself. "So just fuck off already."

"Well then." Sam exhaled an insouciant breath, unfolding his arms. "No deal."

He turned and began to walk out. As he reached the door, he heard him.

"Michael," Dean's voice then piped up from behind him. Sam froze at the name. "Comes in my dreams every night. Has been for the past week. He's, uh… trying to get me to say yes."

If Lucifer could do it to Sam, then why couldn't Michael do it to Dean too?

As alarming as it was, Sam still felt the need to tread carefully. He rotated back to face him, shaking his head. "But it still doesn't make sense. How's that related to...you know, staying stuck here?"

"He's coming for me," Dean answered, sounded exasperated at best, everything else brimming like boiling water beneath his words, in his eyes. "He finds me, he takes me away. And he does god-knows-what to get me to do his bidding. So you know, I'm a sitting duck here. Until you find me a way back to my world, I think dodging him by being on the move is what's best for me."

"This place is heavily warded."

"How much good is that gonna be against an  _archangel_?"

"How do I know you're not making this up?"

"You don't," Dean said nonchalantly. "But you can regret not believing me when you come back tomorrow and don't see me here."

Sam shifted on his feet contemplatively. It was hard to tell if his brother was bluffing about Michael, but he also knew he couldn't afford to take this lightly. He wasn't stupid enough to not see Dean twisting this for his own benefit, to manipulate Sam into letting him free, but if Michael  _was_ coming for Dean and he figured out his location, then staying locked up here for Dean didn't seem like the best idea. Being on the move, traveling around from one place to another...that would reduce Michael's chances of finding him. It wasn't as if any of them could fight back against an archangel to protect him, although Sam was willing to try.

But letting  _this_  Dean out really didn't sit well with him either. Sam often followed his head over his heart, but his father also taught him to  _always_  go with his gut, with his intuition, no matter what. When things were uncertain, Sam had observed that sometimes it had guided him better than any logic could.

He breathed out.

"I'll take that risk."

…

The next morning when Sam slid the rectangular window open to check in on his brother, Dean wasn't on the cot anymore. The handcuffs were still linked to a metal bar on the cot laid across the pillow. Panic flooded his veins.

Fuck.

Sam quickly unlocked the heavy door with sweaty hands, turning the wheel. He pushed it open and rushed in, heart battering against his sternum, the sound of pumping blood filling his ears.

And the next thing he knew, he was grabbed from behind and slammed into the wall, arm twisted behind his back. The gun in his waistband was tugged out instantly with a sharp pull and placed against his head, the clicking sound of the safety turning off.

Sam struggled, cheek shoved up against the concrete, shoulders thrashing. Dean shoved him in more forcefully. "Dean! How the hell…"

"Good thing you handcuffed my non-dominant hand," Dean scoffed. "That means dislocating my own thumb won't stop me from makin' you pay."

"You don't want to do this," Sam said, voice strained from discomfort and pain as Dean jerked his arm up behind his back. "We can help you with Michael."

"Don't have to. He ain't trailing me."

Sam huffed, closing his eyes. Of course. He just wanted to plant the idea in his head, so that he would come barging right into his trap. How could he be so fucking stupid?

Everything, from the deal conversation to the flicker of something on his face, making him think he was  _afraid_ of something... all deliberate and meticulously planned.

"But you still want to go back, don't you? Dean, I can get you there, okay? But if we don't even  _have_  you to send back…"

Dean hummed in mock-consideration. His hand, wrapped around his arm, moved with his shrug. "Nah. I'll get myself there."

And then he grabbed Sam's head and rammed his face hard into the wall.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I broke my theme for this chapter *sigh* I kind of regret starting it anyway. But I wanted it to make sense why Tim still continued with his plan even after the call.
> 
> Writing mean!Dean is kind of agonizing...


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for injury descriptions, implications/mentions of past abuse (at the last scene)

Dean called Cas again, and it went straight to his nerdy, awkward and confused voicemail.

" _I...I don't understand. Why do you want me to say my name?_ "

"Sam's in trouble. Some hunters got him, sounded like more than a few, and they're hurtin' him bad." Dean breathed deeply and closed his eyes when he heard the agonized screams that shot sharply like a bullet into his chest, the distant, muffled chorus of laughters that still sent a flare of fury through his veins to remember. Those brutal sons of bitches found hurting  _Sammy_  fucking comical. He was going to rip out their fucking lungs. "I get that you're on your important God-hunt mission thing right now, but this is a hell of a lot more important than that. This is my little brother we're talking about, so if you do  _not_  get your feathered ass down to Philadelphia at the texted coordinates by 9am, I will shave your goddamn wings, you hear me?" The voice message ended with a beep.

He flipped his phone shut, hauled his bag up over his shoulder a bit more and walked towards the car he had stolen a while back.

**…**

In a desolated road in the middle of nowhere in Philadelphia, Dean parked the car to the side.

There was a beat-up, red Ford truck and a suburban white car already pulled up on the adjacent end nearly fifteen to twenty feet away. When he got out, so did three other people from their vehicle, coming to stand in front of it.

The other three joined a moment later, emerging from the truck.

Two of the faces were ones that he recognized from his teenage years. Reggie and Tim, the latter being whose voice he heard on the phone. Both old friends of dad's. Fucking bastards. If their father were here, he would have shot an entire load of bullets into their asses for this.

And between the two of them was his very battered and bloodied little brother, forcibly dragged along with them (for fuck's sake, couldn't these bastards go a little easy on him? Kid was banged up as it was). Sam was staggering and stumbling, barely able to keep his feet under, head bowed down behind the curtain of his hair. Dean wished to God he would look at him, wished the very sight of him could reassure him that everything would be okay because Dean was here now, like it always had back there, but he didn't think it would be comforting to Sam here. In his mind, he was no better than any of these hunters, so it wouldn't help him.

It wouldn't help Dean to see the pain and sorrow all over his face either.

From the brief glance that he got, Sammy looked bad.

Real bad. Been through a grinder and back  _bad_.

It already made Dean feel sick to his gut.

Dean kept his poker face rigid and straight, even as it was the most difficult thing to maintain his composure, because he wanted to fucking break every single bone in each one of their bodies for what they did to his brother. He tried not to look at Sam too much, not only because he didn't think he would be able to keep himself together if he did, but also because they might notice it and it would blow his cover.

"Long time no see, Dean-o," Tim greeted, his expression thoroughly neutral and guarded. He didn't entirely trust Dean yet, wasn't sure if he was on their side. He didn't exactly have any other plans, even after an hours long drive wracking his brains, contemplating and pondering (although to be fair, he was pretty frantic and rushed to the point of breaking speed limits and could barely think straight about it), other than to buy enough time for either Cas to get here or for himself to improvise a way out for both of them. It was an open, deserted road, which meant they had nowhere to run or hide. He had no idea what they wanted from him. Sam was hurt bad, so he wouldn't be to do anything without Dean's support, let alone contribute to their escape plan, and Dean couldn't risk his own life to save Sam's because that was, paradoxically, jeopardizing Sam's too. Back-up hadn't been available either, because now with all the gossip spreading around, there weren't a lot of people he could trust. The people that he  _could_  trust were all either miles away, too far to reach here on time, or ignoring his calls.

A certain celestial being fucking included.

As far as he knew, anything he could possibly plan out here seemed impossible. He didn't know if these morons were actually smart enough to have done this deliberately or if they had no idea.

Well, as far as he remembered, Tim and Reggie were not the smartest tools in the shed. The other three, he didn't know about, but he hoped they weren't too different.

It seemed nearly impossible to go up on his own against five armed hunters, and five armed hunters that had Sammy as leverage at that. He knew he came in half-assed, albeit without much of a choice considering their deadline, but he knew he was depending too much on hopes and luck, which had never been on their side.

"Been a while," Dean agreed with a nod, features as cold and impassive as he could make it to imitate Psycho-Dean's default expression, which wasn't hard when he was talking to these knuckleheads. He kept himself ambiguous for the time being. Whatever they were expecting out of him, he would play on that.

"I really thought you wouldn't have bothered," Reggie piped up. He was testing him. There was a wary, suspicious note to it. "Going by the tales we've heard, it seemed to me like you would have barely driven out a metre to see this piece of shit." He jerked his head towards Sam.

"I wouldn't have, actually," Dean responded, shoved a hard lid on the fiery emotions welling up in his body, thinking of what Sam had to be thinking. Fuck. It was like confirming everything Sam had been assuming all this time about him. He was probably driving them right back to square-one with this act (then again, they hadn't made a lot of progress in the first place, sadly). He thought of a quick explanation on his feet that he wasn't exactly hundred percent sure about, but would have to do. "But I was already passin' through to see a friend in Kensington. Figured it couldn't hurt to see what you were up to with the—" He barely held himself back from stammering on the word. "—freak. Not a bad job so far."

It took every fucking thing inside of him, every bit of steely willpower, to force himself to say that and make it sound convincing.

His gut lurched with nausea when he saw Sam's shoulders begin to shake in his peripheral vision.

_I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry._

Tim seemed to grow cemented in his misconception after that.

He huffed a companionable smirk. "Did a fine job on him yourself, Winchester."

Dean controlled the violent flinch that nearly shuddered up his body, covering it up by shifting on his feet. He shrugged, not sure of how to respond to  _that_  (and in all honesty, he couldn't care less to), and hoped they would interpret it differently.

Thankfully, they must have. "We want you to do the honors," an unknown man spoke up from beside them. He pulled out another gun besides the one he was already gripping and waved it. "That's why you're here."

And then Dean couldn't breathe.

These stupid sons of bitches… they wanted him to  _kill_  Sammy.

He forcefully rooted himself to the ground, body so tense and tight that he felt himself beginning to tremble, his muscles like stone. He couldn't break character to rip out their throats right now. He couldn't. He wouldn't be able to save Sammy and get him out of here alive if they shot him dead. Besides, they were basically just about to hand Sammy over to him on a silver platter. That had to help them, right?

" _That's_  what you stopped me here for," Dean drawled, narrowing his eyes in feigned disbelief and annoyance. "And you, what, couldn't have done that yourself?"

Reggie seemed to have finally bought it. He snorted. "Consider it a push towards what you should have done a long time ago."

And then he hurled Sammy to the ground, in front of him. Fucking  _hurled_  his tortured and hurt baby brother to the ground, his baby brother that  _they_  tortured and hurt, to Dean's feet, ripping a gasp from his throat, followed by a grinded scream of anguish when it impacted on his harrowing injuries, ripped at Dean inside to hear it too. He had to force himself to stay still where he was, to not jolt forward in order to catch him, to not rush towards him and check over him and make sure they didn't screw up something they shouldn't have.

That was when he got a good look at Sammy's state, and he wanted to break because this was  _his_  fucking fault and if he had only been  _there_ …

Maybe if he had just never left, this wouldn't have happened.

And he wanted to go on a fucking murder spree, because these sick sons of bitches thought they did the right thing by doing this to his brother.

There were patches of blood all across Sam's clothes, dried through his torn up t-shirt. There were two bullet holes, one on his side and the other on his leg. Glimpses of slashes on his visible arms and biceps, some clean and sharp, and others reckless and brutal. There were whip marks, tearing into his clothes to show themselves as the angry red gashes over his back and chest. Bruises marred his pale face and mottled across his arms and neck and collarbones, fading down his shirt, dried clot of carmine stuck to his hairline and temple. Some of the wounds were never cleaned, ones that would need stitching still leaking with fresh blood, while others were dried to brown. The fingers of his right, blistered hand were swollen and purple.

There was dried blood all over his collar and around his mouth.

Was Sammy throwing up blood? Fuck.  _Fuck_. That was not good, not good at all, because that meant there was internal bleeding and they needed a hospital as soon as possible. The less time taken to mess with that, the better.

But the sight also brought back another image from their past, and then another thought struck him cold, icy fear rushing through his veins.

They wouldn't have, right? They were disgusting, sick bastards for thinking it was okay and justified to hurt his little brother but they wouldn't have…

"That demon blood on his face?" Dean could barely get his voice to work, but he somehow managed to ask the question.

"Gulped it all down just like the bloodsucking junkie bitch he still is," Tim scoffed, like the lying bastard he was. Because Sammy wouldn't, not ever, not after everything. Dean told Sam in that parking lot that he didn't trust him, and Sam told him once at a picnic table that he didn't trust himself either, but he also knew the kid more than anything he knew. And he knew Sammy would never touch that vile, disgusting substance again unless they forced him to.

For once, he wished Sam had used his powers, just to defend himself against these monsters, but he doubted Sam would have been to maintain the focus he needed to with the kind of pain he was in. Plus, after everything that had happened here, he wouldn't touch on those abilities even if it killed him.

Sam was shaking on the ground, face flushed red as tears shone in his eyes, biting his quivering lips like he was holding in something. He wasn't looking at him, just looking like he was trying not to cry, frowning dolefully the way he did when he was trying to control his tears, and he wasn't saying anything. He wasn't defending himself the way Dean wished he would. Maybe he just didn't think it would matter, because he thought Dean was still that psycho son of a bitch who would believe a bunch of numbskulls he barely knew over his own kid brother.

The man came forward and handed him the gun. He then backed away to return to his prior position beside the others.

Dean could use it to start shooting into these dickheads the way he yearned to, but they were distanced too far apart and none of them had let go of their weapons. He wouldn't be fast enough to get all of them before one of them shot him, or worse, shot Sammy. If it was only him, he sure as hell wouldn't have minded taking the risk.

But Sammy was here. And if Sammy was here and it was  _his_  life on the line, then no risk was worth taking. He wished Cas would just fucking drop whatever he was doing and get here already. Or that his damn, useless brain would be able to think of a way to get out of this impossible situation.

Dean crouched down slowly, gun loosely pointed at Sam, and he desperately hoped that they wouldn't see the hesitance in that gesture. He had to buy them both time, but it seemed like he had to trade the little trust he created between Sam and himself for every minute he tried to get.

He shaped his features into a stone-cold, withering glare, reached out to grip Sam's hair as far away from the head injury as he could, curled his fingers enough to hopefully make it look convincing but barely hurt. "Back to your old ways, Sam?"

Sam's red-rimmed eyes fell closed, eyelashes glistening. He looked ashamed. Guilty. Afraid. His mouth was scrunched up, brows furrowed, and he inhaled tremulously, curled up on the ground either from the pain or protection from the pain he expected or both.

"So you chugged it all down gladly, huh? Just like the demon-blood junkie I always said you were." Dean tried not to show the clench of remorse in his gut on his face for saying those words.

But the five pairs of eyes boring into him, watching them intently, reminded him that they really needed all the time they could get, and this was the only way he could think of, but he couldn't think of a damn thing to get them out of here alive. Even so, he kept some of his attention focused on the hunters, lest they thought he was delaying too much and decided to do it themselves.

And it was also the best way to fuck up his baby brother's self-esteem even more than it already was. But at least Sam would be  _there_  for him to fix things with after this.

Sam shook his head frantically, flushed face finally crumpling completely as the tears dripped down his cheeks. "N-no… no, I…" He made a noise that sounded like he was trying to choke down a sob. "I spat it all out the first time… I swear, Dean. A-all of it." His voice was thick and shaky and full of desperation.

Dean felt the pride warm his insides.  _That's my boy_ , he thought. He brushed his thumb inconspicuously over his scalp and hoped that the message would get through. He didn't think it did.

"B-but then…" he gasped out in a strangled, pained voice, tears wetting his cheeks. He swallowed, frantically trying to speak, trying to sound stronger. His breaths were short and fast. Something was clenching its fists around Dean's gut, his heart, his lungs. He could barely fucking breathe. "Then…I cou-couldn'...the pain...there were t-too… too many and I cou-couldn'... I-I fought... I told them n-no, Dean."

This was so fucked up. The only shitty pro to seeing Sam like this was that these fuckers were buying it. How fucking great.

He mentally cussed at Cas again for not showing up when they needed him.

"That's bullshit!" Dean snarled. "You probably wanted it, didn't you?"

It seemed Sam just fucking lost whatever motivation he had to defend himself at that, because instead of denying it the way he was supposed to, he only tried to curl up tighter into himself as if it would guard him against Dean's cruel accusations and vilification, but he couldn't do it any more than he already had, so he stopped and just fucking laid there instead, eyes clenched shut as he turned his face away into the ground and just cried so hard that he couldn't make a noise, his body taut and probably hurting like hell from the force of his sobs contracting his muscles. Dean felt like the biggest asshole in the entire fucking world.

"'M s-sorry… tried so h-hard…"

"I don't know, man. Somethin' don't feel right here," a voice muttered. Sounded like Ugly Buzzcut, the guy who handed him the gun.

Dean stilled.

"You and me both," the other unknown man replied. The grey-eyed ogre, he guessed. Dean heard bits of the conversation, but he pieced the words together for his mind to form the full, proper sentences. "He's takin' too much time when he should have blown the thing's brains out already."

"Yeah," Ugly Buzzcut agreed. "And I'm gettin' real tired of hearing them talk."

_Cas, you stupid bastard. Where the hell are you?_

Dean kept his hand ready, his fingers resting firmly on the trigger, body tense and alert. If the guy tried to shoot Sam now…

He had one more move to play. It wasn't all aces, but maybe… maybe it could be enough to win. Maybe, if they were lucky enough, these fuckers could really turn out to be as dumb as Dean hoped they were.

"Death would be too kind for someone like him," Dean growled, his flat gaze traveling up to them. "Let me take him. I'll make him pay with my own hands."

Something shifted across the grey-eyed ogre and Ugly Buzzcut. Doubt.

"We want you to do it here," Tim spoke for the rest of them. "Just making sure there won't be any loose ends is all."

"You saying you don't trust me?" Dean cocked his head.

"It ain't about trust, Winchester," the blue-haired bitch piped up. "We want to see him dead, right in front of us, or we won't rest. So take the favor and shoot him, or we will."

Dean's jaw clenched. His fingers were tense around the gun, arms prepared to launch upwards if needed.

"Let's put it this way, bucko," Ugly Buzzcut said when Dean seemingly paused too long. "You have five seconds before we take matters into our own hands."

It was left unsaid in the air, but Dean knew it clear as day that if he didn't give them what they wanted in the next five seconds, he would murder his helpless, tortured kid brother in cold blood.

And then he would shoot him too, because it would be a confirmation that Dean had never been on their side.

Ugly Buzzcut started the countdown. Dean didn't move.

 _5_.

_Fuck you, Cas. Fuck you._

_4_.

He stared down at his hurt brother, who was still curled up on the ground, still shaking, still fucking crying into the dust of the road, arms thrown over his head. So lost in his soul-wrenching grief and terror, of the end he thought he would face for something that had been done to him. So sure that Dean would...

 _3_.

"What's the matter, Winchester?" Reggie asked. "You're hesitatin' too much about this. I mean, you do know that ain't your brother anymore, right?"

 _2_.

He saw Ugly Buzzcut move in his peripheral vision, looked a lot like he was beginning to lift his armed hand.

Dean's own gun snapped up at him in an instant. "Don't."

All of their guns snapped up at Dean too. Ugly Buzzcut's weapon was the only one aimed at Sam, so Dean kept it on him.

He knew he didn't have a snowballs chance out of this, but he was gritting it out anyway, "You shoot my brother, you die."

_Get your feathery ass down here already, you stupid bastard._

As if his prayer was truly heard and answered, in the next split second, that beautiful son of a bitch angel was suddenly standing in front of him, in a sound of flapping wings gracefully stilling as Cas came to land on the ground between the hunters and them, and the coil tightening around Dean's lungs finally let go. Dean finally  _breathed_.

But then all hell broke loose.

Dean threw himself down over Sam's cowering and beaten body to keep him safe from any incoming bullets, arms beside the kid's shredded back and above his head while making sure not to put any weight on him, fingers buried into his hair. Guns fired from all around, explosive sounds aching in his ears, at and through Cas' vessel.

The firing stopped abruptly.

A split second later followed the sound of numerous objects thumping heavily onto land, and then everything was quiet.

Dean quickly scrambled himself up on the support of his palms, still hovering over Sam protectively as he took in the scene. All the guns were hurled far away from their reach. Cas' vessel was full of bullet holes, but his body resealed within seconds, wedged bullets falling away with a chorus of metallic clinks to the ground. He stood unfazed as he faced them. They were all fumbling to take out their other weapons.

The rest, after being ensured safety by their angel friend, he didn't pay much attention to. He looked down at Sam, who was looking up at him now, face still flushed and wet and swollen from tears and bruises but he wasn't crying anymore, just looking up at Dean through his red-rimmed hazel eyes in this lost and tentatively questioning way. He couldn't see anything that was going on behind him.

Dean carefully gripped his biceps. Sam's breath hitched, jerking violently, when he slowly began to lift him up to take him into his arms, either from pain or terror or both. He probably shouldn't be touching the kid, not after everything he just fucking said, but he needed to see how bad it was (maybe he needed to be close to him too after this shitshow).

"Wh-what are you—" Sam rasped out as Dean laid him against his own chest sideways,  wrapping a loose arm around him and shushing him.

"Sh, sh, sh… it's okay. It's okay. Everything's okay, kiddo," Dean softly murmured. He stroked his long, girlish hair. "Everything's good."

There was a yell from behind them, a human body colliding into the ground heavily. He might have heard a muffled crack.

Sam stared up at him as the dredges of the pain faded away, his tight grimace gradually loosening away, replaced instead with a frown of confusion, but mingled with a resignation to that confusion that had grown too common with him. Dean grasped his right wrist with the gentlest hand, the one with the swollen and purple fingers, but the kid thought god-knows-what when he did, eyes growing large as he gasped, trying to pull it away and out of his grip weakly. Dean tried to tug it back, not too forcefully. "N-no, don—" he nearly fucking sobbed out the plea.

Dean settled it on his knee lightly. "Better?"

Sam blinked, but he seemed fine about it. Dean hadn't exactly expected much of a response anyway. He got to work, tilting Sam's cheek to examine his head injury, tenderly ran his fingers through his hair to feel it loosely. There was matted blood on it, and the goosebump was  _huge_. There might possibly be a concussion.

He then inclined his face towards his own to look at it closely. Nose, jaw, cheek. All intact. Just puffed up cuts and bruises (and fucking  _blood_ ) that still pissed Dean off to see. As if he hadn't already seen enough of this on his baby brother here, for fuck's sake!

Sam was watching him unfathomably again. Dean brushed his hands over his shoulders, prodding at his collarbones and shoulder blades and joints, trying to dodge the bloodied spots on his shirt as much as he could, but the kid still clenched his eyes shut against the contact, brows scrunching together and jaw setting against the strangled moan of pain that released against his will anyway. Dean felt a sharp pang in his chest at the idea of causing him any further pain with his own hands.

He supposed he should cut up the shirt, but in all honesty, he wasn't sure if he was ready to actually see the full extent of the abuse these shitheads had done on his brother.

"You came... for me," Sam croaked out softly, and it ripped his stupid, fucking heart to pieces. He wished to God he never had to sound like that, like he couldn't entirely believe it (and not for the first time, he regretted not getting to beat the shit out of that psycho) and he wished to God he could hold his brother closer, but he was hurt. "To save me."

Dean hummed, continued probing lightly at his ribs. He couldn't say what he really wanted to say, which was,  _I always do_ , because that response didn't work here. So he said, his voice only just a bit hoarse and rough, "I did." He felt a rib lower slightly with his pressure, and Sam cried out in anguish, fingers tightening on the back of his shirt, and in a world like this, Dean could barely stand seeing him in any sort of pain, let alone stand putting him in any sort of pain himself. "Sorry. Sorry." His palm shot up to press Sam's head closer to his neck soothingly.

Cas appeared then, coming to stand before the pair.

"What'd you do with em'?" Dean asked, curious but not really caring enough to actually look back at them. He trusted Cas with whatever he did, which hopefully was that he knocked them out cold for the time being so that Dean could shove them all together in his trunk and break every bone in their bodies for what they did to Sam.

"They will not bother either of you anymore," Cas replied, somewhat darkly. He knelt down, raising his hands over Sam, whose eyes were half-mast when Dean glanced down at him. The blood loss and the weakness and fatigue was getting to him, but he didn't think it was safe for him to be succumbing to them, so he shook him lightly. "Sammy, hey…" he whispered. "Hey, stay awake. Keep your eyes open for me."

Sam's eyes shot open, before lowering back to slits. Dean carded a hand through his locks, pressing his mouth to his head.

"Are they dead?" he mumbled the question, his words muffled into his brother's hair. He could smell the blood and sweat.

He wouldn't mind it if Cas killed them all, but he also wanted to do the job himself.

"Not precisely," Cas said, and left him guessing. His palms touched Sam's wrist on Dean's knee, before hovering over his hand, glowing to heal the fingers wrenched out of place.

Dean finally looked back.

None of them were there.

"But where they currently reside, they will not be able to make their way out alive." Cas brushed a hand over the bullet hole on Sam's leg.

There was something fierce burning in Cas' sea-blue gaze. Something Dean had never quite seen on him, especially not for Sam. He supposed, here in this world, Cas had never liked letting his little brother get hurt either.

…

Cas' powers were not what they used to be before he got cut off from heaven, so his angel mojo got exhausted after so much usage in such a short time. He managed to heal Sam's bullet wounds, disjointed fingers and only some of the surface flesh wounds, but he couldn't get to his blood loss, his cracked or broken ribs.

So he zapped them with the last of his energy reserves to a nearby hospital in a spot where nobody saw them.

He took Sammy to them and they took him away from Dean and put him on a bed and into a room, looking Sam over and yelling and doing things Dean didn't totally understand. Cas stayed with Dean in the waiting room, recuperating. At least that made him a little less bored, and maybe a lot less anxious the way hospital waiting chairs and hospital beds and seeing his hurt kid brother on them made him.

"Where I come from, you and Sam were not exactly close," Dean mentioned, just to make conversation, as well as to understand this new and strange bond Sam and Cas seemed to have built here. It had been been silent, save for the sounds of magazine page turns and sniffs and occasional murmurs between a married couple a few chairs away. "You didn't hate each other but… well, I couldn't tell if you felt friendly towards each other or not. At least, on your part, I couldn't, 'cause Sam's like this nerdy Christian boyscout that thinks of you as the kind of angel we've always thought them to be. Like, saving kittens from trees and healing lepers and all that shit."

"Well, initially, it is true that I did not see your brother in a very positive light," Castiel admitted. "I was either mostly indifferent to his existence or considered him a nuisance, and later on an asset, in the grand scheme for our misguided notion of the greater good."

Dean didn't like hearing him talk about Sam like that, if he was honest, but the guy had come around, so he would give him the benefit of the doubt. "So what changed?"

Cas didn't say anything for a moment.

"I felt responsible for what Sam was suffering," he then confessed after a moment. He looked down at his hands clasped in his lap, and the gesture was too weirdly human and vulnerable and new on him. "It was I who lured him out of the panic room, after all."

Dean couldn't move or speak for nearly ten seconds. "You…  _what_?"

"The meagre sanity and resistance that remained within you, that  _perhaps_  might have been enough control to prevent all that would happen later, broke wholly when Sam went away with Ruby instead of you," Castiel continued, barely noticing his shock. "That would not have happened had I known better than to release him from the panic room."

"You're damn right it wouldn't have," Dean snapped angrily. He lowered his voice when he noticed people beginning to turn heads. "How could you?"

"I thought I was doing the right thing," Cas said, staring at him in that grave manner of his. "But it turned out I was not. I soon realized that Sam was no different."

Dean sighed quietly, rubbing a hand down his face. He supposed this was far more than he could expect from a being that understood nothing about emotions and humans and their complicated affairs. "Did you ever tell him?"

"I did," Cas affirmed. "And he was very angry and... hurt. I did not know how to react to his emotions, so I disappeared." On the surface, he was his typical mechanical, blank-faced self, but there seemed to be something else brimming underneath the words. "I returned that night to the motel room, having learnt of a human custom when one did something morally wrong. I came to, as you humans say, 'apologize' but…" Cas stopped.

Dean didn't know if he wanted to know. He didn't know if he wanted  _to fucking know._..

"I do not know what happened in the time after I left," Cas continued after a brief moment. "I do not know if it may have been something you said or something he concluded independently, but when I came back to him, he no longer faulted me for what I did. I found the room destroyed, and he was chained to his bed, and he was wounded. He could not speak well because of the strangulation on his throat, but he was trying to tell me he was sorry." Dean breathed deeply, pinching at his aching eyes, felt something clog in his throat. Dean knew it had fucking  _everything_  to do with what that deranged asshole must have said. "He expressed that he was, to quote, only tired of feeling bad all the time, so he latched on to the first thing to make it stop, and said that even if I had opened the way for him, he chose to walk it, because everything he did before and after my opening the door was on him. He... he told me it was not my fault."

Dean swallowed down whatever was throbbing in his throat. It was throbbing in his chest too and he was so damn sick of feeling things. It was as if he had been walking around with this boulder caving in on his insides, so heavy sometimes that he couldn't breathe.

His gaze was rooted to the tiled floor of the hospital waiting room. "And then?" he pressed softly.

There was a beat of silence.

And then he answered in a voice that was too unusual and quiet for a creature like him, "And then he asked me if I could stay. So I did."

It sounded like the loneliest fucking thing.

Dean had never been more grateful for the angel, that he was there and he was there for Sammy and he was their friend. That he was  _Sammy's_  friend. That he took care of him however he could when no one else could or did.

Neither of them said much after that. Not for a while.

"You must understand that it was not only Sam's fault," Castiel stated suddenly, glancing over at him with his characteristic intensity and depth in his erythraen eyes. "There were many other people that were responsible for the apocalypse besides your brother."

Dean slowly nodded in understanding, shrugging. "We all had our parts in bringing the world to its knees, huh?" he said ponderingly.

It was never just Sam. It was Sam and it was Cas and it was the angels and the demons and it was  _Dean_.

And maybe most of all, it was Dean.

"Yes," Cas agreed. "Although Sam did not believe you had a part, as you were under duress."

"Well I did," Dean responded simply. It didn't feel good to say it, but it did feel right to him. "It all started with me, and breaking the last seal wouldn't have mattered if I didn't break the first. I could have held out. Be as strong as my dad."

Castiel fell into another silence, but it was more out of contemplation, gathering words to explain his thoughts.

"A being as powerful as I could not truly fathom the concept of human suffering," he finally began, looking down at the tiled floor with his hands clasped. "Over the course of a thousand years, I have watched humans get hurt and hurt others, over and over, so much so that it has grown mediocre and trite at best for me. Therefore, I cannot say anything to you that would be fair from human perspective. However, Sam has explained to me that pain can only be stood for as long as a person can detach themselves from it and push through it." Cas' blue eyes then turned to him, boring deeply into him, and it was still as uncomfortable as the first time he ever did. Still left him feeling raw and exposed. "And you, Dean… you feel things too deeply in ways that your father did not, even when you pretend otherwise. If anything, you pretend you do not feel much  _because_  you feel too much. It is a defense mechanism against anyone who would use your vulnerability against you, and that was why your pain was harsher in a shorter time, why you gave in sooner than your father, who, rumor had it, was also on the verge of surrendering before he was freed."

Dean didn't know how to respond to that, so he didn't. To think his strong as titanium father was about to cave, albeit after a hundred years…

He wasn't self-aware or introspective enough to sense how true it all was, if it was true at all or if it was merely Sam making excuses for him (still somehow seeing the fucking good in him that he sure as hell didn't deserve here), but Sam was also the only one who always saw through him and inside of him like glass. Sometimes he saw him clearer than anyone, maybe even himself (sometimes even before  _he_  could), and it shocked him because he liked to think otherwise, that he was doing a good job of concealing his innermost feelings. Yet, it had always taken twice the effort to hide away his true emotions from Sam than it had with anyone.

His mind vaguely drifted towards the words that his own Sam had once bellowed at him, ardent and emotional, in the year that Dean had thought would be the last of his life.

" _Because I've been following you around my entire life! Studying you, trying to be just like my big brother. So yeah I know you. Better than anyone else in the entire world, Dean_."

"For someone who finds anthropic torment so insignificant," Cas said musingly, facing ahead. "It is strange how I do not like seeing Sam suffer, just as I did not like seeing you suffer."

Dean huffed. There was a weird sensation of warmth rushing through his veins, but this whole conversation was also like a weird, Dr. Phil episode with Cas and that was pretty damn new and strange.  _This_  Cas was somewhat new and strange (he wondered if it was the influence of all the time he spent with his girly, heart-on-his-sleeve kid brother), at least more than he already was, even if he was still mostly his robotic, gravelly-voiced, unemotional self, and Dean didn't really know what to do with that. "Was that a first?"

"It was."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Cas' friendship is so underrated and terribly unexplored. I don't think they were very close at this stage in canon, but I figured things would be different in the AU considering the circumstances. I might write a chapter from AU!Cas' point of view on this situation, but idk.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: mild torture (most of it is skipped over, so very mild, except for the second scene), dark!AU!Dean hence it may be difficult to read

**Real Universe**

 

When he began to wake up, the first thing that registered in Sam's brain was that he was horizontal.

The second was that his movements were limited. Both of his wrists were bounded above him in cold, metallic chains.

The third was that he couldn't feel the weight of any of his hidden weapons on his body.

"Rise and shine, Sammy boy." Dean's voice was flat and wry, the words an echo of the times the playful, exasperating phrase had once become a daily part of his morning.

"What are you going to do to me?" Sam questioned, casual and calm, even when he felt anything but. His heart was pounding frantically in his chest, his skin hot and clammy. Dean had threatened to do a lot of things to him for confining him to the panic room, and he had sounded like he would follow through on it without a doubt. That meant that if Sam didn't find a way to get out of this alive, he was in for a brutally slow, torturous and mutilating death.

"I told you I'm going to make you pay," Dean answered coolly, twirling a knife between his hands. "So I'm going to make you pay."

"Then go ahead." Sam held his eye-contact, maintaining his reposed and bold demeanor. "Do your worst."

"Chained me up here for three weeks." Dean was fixated on his knife.  _Sam's_  knife, which had been tucked into his belt. "I really didn't like that.". His incandescent rage often came out in the purest, wild beast foaming at the mouth incarnation of it, but it also came out looking like dull tranquility, like the sea, ran so deep but it only looked still on the surface. It looked like nonchalance. It was like it had grown to be a part of him, so much so that he barely even felt it, like he didn't even know anymore what it had been like to not feel it, like it was all there had ever been in him. It filled his every action and deed and word, the motive of everything he did, but it didn't always show on his face or in his eyes.

His own Dean was loud in his anger. Expressive. He yelled and swore and threw around things and words. At times, he was cold and calm under the influence of his fiercest emotions too, but this was…

This wasn't the same.

This was clearly worse.

"See, I could teach you your place," Dean said, his voice holding an insouciant composure. "Like I did with you back in my world… but I'd rather not waste too much time on it. So we'll probably be done in, say, a day. Maybe two, or more." His shoulders bounced slightly in a blasé manner. "We'll see about when I decide to end it." It wasn't said, but Sam knew that meant  _his_  end too.

"Yeah, you're such a peach," Sam scoffed satirically.

'Not going to ask about the old man?"

Sam's heart jolted painfully in his chest, and it showed clearly on his face. Dean's features twitched into an imperceptible, wry smile. "What did you do to Bobby?"

He snorted. "I didn't do anything to him...not yet, anyway."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"That's your choice," he said, cocking his head. "But a little fact about me… I don't like screams. Never did in Hell either. They, uh… they get on my nerves, so..."

Sam's eyebrows twitched up in a,  _your point?_

"So we'll play a game. You and me." Dean smirked darkly, leaning forward. "Your objective: don't scream. Or else the crippled old man up there knows something ain't right here. And that means he tries to butt in. And that means he has to die. We clear on the rules?"

 

**...**

 

Sam barked out a laugh, cutting off his own gritted heaves of pain.

"Is that all... you got?" he forced out through the burning pain, thick and rough. His body was collecting bruises and lacerations, quick and sharp, slow and dragged. The man did know all the weakest spots to hurt, he had to give him that, but there was no way Sam was giving him the satisfaction. He spat out blood, seeping from the cuts in his mouth where his teeth sliced into it. "That all you learned from... your time with the master of torture?"

"Wow. You seem like you're enjoying this," Dean drawled snidely, lifting an eyebrow.

" _You_  seem like...you're pulling back," Sam sneered.

"Just warmin' up… plus, I'm a little limited on tools, you may notice," Dean replied apathetically, shrugging. "Back in Hell, there were things you didn't even have names for, that could cause unimaginable pain by just one use, especially in the right places or in the right ways. More room for creativity and all that shit."

"Yeah... right. That's great to know." Sam half-smiled sarcastically.

Dean smiled back hollowly and stabbed the knife right into his thigh.

Sam shoved down the scream that ripped up his throat, teeth clenching so hard he thought they might break. Gasping wheezes tore out of his lungs until he ran out of air, vocal cords trapped into something silent instead. His body arched up when the agony didn't stop, thrashing on the cot. The handcuffs sliced into his wrists, all his muscles tight and trembling hard, fists clenched so tightly he could feel his nails cut into his palms. He heaved a breath in and it came out choked and stuttered.

_Fuck_ , that fucking hurt like a fucking  _bitch_ , waves of white-hot agony smoldering excruciatingly into the muscles, firing rapidly across the surrounding areas and crossing down to his toes heatedly.

The bastard sure as hell knew what he was doing, because everything hurt ten times worse when you couldn't even let yourself react to the hurt, when the terror of having the life of someone you love hung on that.

" _Fuck_ ," Sam gasped out, still choking, a noise that sounded a little too embarrassingly close to a sob, his chest jouncing up and down rapidly. Tears welled up in his eyes, sweat and blood soaking through his clothes. "Fuck you."

Dean shrugged, his green eyes, once so full of feeling (of warmth and humor and Dean), still as empty as ever. "You asked for it."

 

**…**

 

Sam came back to the land of the living slowly, faded awareness threading back into his mind, anguish and debility still festering throughout his sinking body. His face felt heavy with dried blood. His head felt light, his thoughts mildly dazed and scattered. His shoulder was swollen and stiff, a constant throb and malaise radiating where it was wrenched out of place.

He turned his head and found that Dean was asleep in the chair.

It was kind of an odd sight, just like it always was.

It was too human. And this Dean gave off the vibe of being anything but. To think of someone like him—especially considering his drastic contrast to the good and kind person his big brother really was—feeling fatigued, falling asleep and having dreams like everyone else…

He looked too much like his own Dean right now, facial muscles relaxed and free from the hollowness, the ice, the darkness.

It hurt to look at. It hurt to look at in so many gutting ways.

It hurt enough for something to clog in his throat, his nose, the aching throb in his chest reaching up to his suddenly burning eyes.

He thought of his Dean, of the simplest things about him that all came together to  _make_  him Dean. At least, they were things that he  _used_  to do before Sam screwed it all up, before he turned him into that depressed, angry, hurting man that he was after everything that happened, before all of this.

He thought of all the bad jokes he would make and laugh at them himself and look at Sam right after, like he made them just to make him smile, and sometimes Sam would (just to make him happy, even the times he didn't find it funny) and sometimes Sam wouldn't (would just roll his eyes and shake his head at him and maybe call him an idiot because that was what pissy little brothers did).

And he thought of the way he would act like he was all rough and tough and nothing could scare him, but he would still touch Sam's face, in this gentle way that only he knew of, after a bad hunt, pretending like he was examining his wound even though his thumb would brush imperceptibly over his cheek.

And he thought of how much Dean loved music, humming and singing under his breath, in showers or while waiting or just because he wanted to, belting out at the top of his lungs (made even worse when it was an awfully vulgar song) in the car just to piss the hell out of Sam.

And he thought of how much Dean loved food and pie and his Baby and their family and western movies.

And how much he loved Sam.

Even if the last time he ever told him that outright was when they were thirteen and seventeen and Sam had gotten hurt too bad for the first time. Even so, it had always been there in a lot of what Dean said and did throughout their lives.

And he thought about how much he felt over everything, even if he always tried his hardest not to show it.

And how this Dean didn't feel anything at all.

This Dean didn't love anything. He ate just to eat and he didn't sing and he didn't care about anything.

He loathed Sam more than anything.

Sam swallowed hard at the ache in his throat, brows scrunching together to hold back the unshed sorrow building pressure in his eyes. His head turned away, staring at the wall instead.

He missed his big brother so much that it made him sick.

He sniffed, blinking furiously. Honestly, it had been a couple of very long weeks. He hadn't let himself think a lot about how bad it hurt to see his brother like this, to miss his own Dean, mostly focused on trying to find a way to solve this screwed up mess of a situation, because the sooner he fixed things, the sooner he got his brother back, didn't have to miss him anymore and see this monstrous version of him. It was quiet now and he didn't have anything to do  _but_  think.

"Getting weepy there, Sammy?" His sleep-gruff voice had a dull and caustic tone to it, the usage of the nickname not a familiar comfort, a source of warmth, anymore. "Missing a certain someone?" It sounded like he already knew  _who_  that certain someone was.

Sam rolled his eyes, but the effect felt diminished by the dampness in them. "Go to—"

He stopped. He hadn't let himself say that to Dean for a long while, no matter how pissed he got during their arguments.

Dean chuckled, a somberly amused sound.

He replaced the words with a weary, "Fuck off."

 

**…**

 

"I dream about his life, you know?"

Sam didn't entirely understand that at first. He didn't bother asking for clarification either. Talking felt like it would expend too much energy that he didn't really have anymore. The blood loss was probably getting to him.

"The me here," Dean clarified anyway.

Sam paused then, before he frowned in confusion. The idea was puzzling. How was that possible? Why was he dreaming about  _his_  Dean's life?

But then again, just like he lied about Michael tracking him, he could be lying about this too. Just another form of torture, but of the psychological kind. The worse kind.

"I can tell they happened, because it's like you get this sense of—of deja vu, even if you know they never happened in your life, and it's vivid as hell. Random moments of his life, just here and there. Some of the most mundane things."

Sam heard the rustle of clothes, like he was moving. Leaning forward. Elbows on his knees. The way Dean sat when he was about to say something serious or important.

"I hear his thoughts too…" There was his hollow smile again in his low voice, twisted and knowing. "You know what I hear?"

Sam knew whatever he was about to tell him wouldn't be kind. What he didn't know was whether it would be true or not.

"I hear about how much he regrets making that deal in Cold Oak."

Sam's chest jolted painfully, like a bullet was fired into it.

But he knew that already.

"I hear about how if he had only just let you stay dead back there, he wouldn't have suffered forty years for  _nothing_. The fucking world wouldn't have been hanging by a goddamn thread. You wouldn't have gone so far down that even the sight of you made him sick with disgust. You would have died, but at least you'd still be his sweet, innocent,  _good_ baby brother." His voice went mocking towards the end, a scornful snort that felt more directed at his own Dean than at Sam himself.

Sam didn't react, stared at the wall adamantly without a blink, even if it felt like someone was trying to get their fingers into his guts to shred them out of him.

He knew all of that too. Even if Sam didn't know whether or not he was lying about seeing his Dean's life in his dreams, he knew his brother had to have at least thought and felt some of these things, if not all of them. Even if he didn't mean or want to, even if it was just once, he had to have, and he had every right.

Because it was all true.

"I hear him wonder if he should kill you now, before you end up fucking things up even more somehow, because that's just what you do."

He thought of the voicemail, before he went into that convent. The one he kept listening to, just to remind himself of his place, of how wrong he could be, of how much he fucked up and how he couldn't ever do that again.

" _Listen to me, you bloodsucking freak. Dad said I'd either have to save you or kill you. Well, I'm giving you fair warning. I'm done trying to save you. You're a monster, Sam. A vampire. You're not you anymore and there's no going back_."

Joke was on the bastard.

He wasn't telling him anything he didn't already know.

 

**…**

 

Sam went away for a while, when everything became too much again.

He opened his eyes, raising his aching head with a groan. He couldn't remember when the darkness had ever settled into his mind. His mouth and throat were dry from dehydration, his stomach caving in and bloated with hunger. Yet, the excruciating shots of constant agony, the weakness and the lassitude, was nauseating.

His blurring gaze wandered, landing on Dean. He was awake, still on the chair, bloodied knives all on the floor beside it. He hadn't noticed yet that Sam was awake too, which was the first sign that something wasn't right, because Dean was quick at detecting even the smallest sounds and the motions in his peripheral vision.

Sam's eyes narrowed at the sight. Something was different about him. Something off (more off than everything that was, at least). He was too still, unreactive, quiet, but it wasn't the same as his usual, eerie quiet.

He was just  _sitting_  there on the chair. His shoulders were slightly hunched, head sagging sideways, which was another thing that was off about the whole image. His posture was, more often than not, rigid and straight-backed. He was staring at the wall, his eyes empty, but not in the way Sam knew them to be.

It wasn't as if there was nothing there in him. No feeling or compassion or humanity.

It was more like  _he_  wasn't there. Like he was somewhere else.

His hazy eyes weren't fixated on a wall, but on something beyond reachable, somewhere deep inside his own head.

Sam frowned, trying to scrutinize him closely through his clouded vision.. He looked lost. Trapped in some sort of a trance.

"Dean?" he tried.

He didn't seem to hear him.

"Dean," he called out, his voice slightly louder and firmer.

Dean didn't move. He just blinked slowly at the nothing his gaze was rooted to, boring holes into the wall. He looked, for all intents and purposes, catatonic.

Sam eyed him carefully for a moment, eyes flicking up and down in observation. Could it be some sort of an act? This Dean was, on top of his natural intelligence, manipulative as hell, which was how Sam was even here in the first place.

"Dean!" he yelled, loud enough for his voice to reach up to the upper floors of the house, and  _fuck_ , that sapped a lot out of him. He had hoped that it would startle him back into the present. It should have.

But he was still stuck inside his own head, still entrapped in whatever stupor he was in.

What  _was_  this?

Could it have something to do with Michael?

"Something's not right with you, is it?" Sam questioned. It somewhat sounded like an absurd and ironic question to ask, considering who it was directed at.

Dean moved then, no more than a twitch of his head following towards the sound of his voice, but his eyes didn't clear of the fog.

"You wanna tell me what's going on in that head of yours?"

When Dean's head did rotate toward him, slow and dazed, it was like he was looking past him. Like he couldn't see him there. Still, it was a good sign. Maybe.

"Hey." Sam tried, once more, trying not to let his voice fall into the frailty he felt. "Dean. Look at me. Hey."

Dean's unfocused green eyes did finally meet his, the barest hint of awareness coming back to them, and it was like he had been asleep all this time and had only just began to wake, groggy and confused.

"What's going on with you?"

He didn't answer. He just continued staring at him, or maybe past him. Even when he was looking at him, Sam couldn't tell if he was seeing anything.

He watched as Dean rose up from the chair slowly, and he didn't know what to expect, if he should expect his end now, but then his gaze was losing focus again and going back to being unseeing, so completely out of it that it was…

It was concerning.

Sam felt a hysterical laugh bubble up in him. He must be going crazy. Maybe the bone-deep pain of a wrenched shoulder, bruises, lacerations and an unceremoniously bandaged stab wound along with the deprivation of all his basic human needs was getting to him.

But seeing the man like this, still his brother even if there was nothing about him that really made him  _his_  brother—his Dean—the sudden, drastic change to this muddled and entranced and confused man… was pretty unsettling as well.

In the strangest and most unexpected turn of events, Dean turned away from him and walked towards the door instead, sleepwalking with open, misted eyes, still lost and hazy and  _not all there_.

And then he was out.

And then he was gone.

Just like that.

 

…

 

For the next however many hours, Sam stayed down there, going in and out of the living world, vehement hunger and thirst among with other basic needs nagging for his attention every waking moment, which seemed to be a rarity in itself, stuck with no way out. The key to the handcuffs must still be with Dean. His phone was too far out of reach, on the ground besides the chair along with all of his other items, including his weapons that were smeared with his own blood.

But he figured it out that something wasn't okay up there with Bobby either, because his phone hadn't rung once in all the time he had been here (then again, it wasn't as if he was constantly conscious to know that). Moreover, he had yelled and screamed for him, but there was no voice echoing back to him.

Maybe this was how he died. Even if Dean didn't kill him with his own hands, he did leave him to die a long, painful death of agony and starvation and his organs slowly wearing down from lack of water, left alone and terrified as he wondered if the only other family he had left right now was even alive or okay on a floor above him.

And then Cas showed up, always the blessing that they needed.

The flutter of wings, alerting him of his arrival, sent a cool breeze in Sam's way. It felt like heaven in that moment, bringing promise of relief and salvation.

"Cas," Sam breathed out, a tremulous, feeble flicker of a smile playing on his cracked lips.

He was looking at Sam with something he didn't think he was interpreting right. It looked like concern, but Sam couldn't exactly tell if his reading was accurate. Seeing and misunderstanding things wasn't far-fetched for his befuddled mind right now. Cas glanced around, apparently noting the absence of Dean. His eyes furrowed together in puzzlement. "What happened?"

Sam swallowed, and it hurt his dry throat like glass shards. "Can…" His voice came out strained. "Can you go...check on Bobby? I-I don't… know if he's..." His words got caught there, and as much as he wanted to blame it on his dry throat, he didn't know if it wasn't because of the tears that couldn't come out too. His face was beginning to crumple of its own accord.

It had been a couple of  _really_  shitty weeks, and he felt like absolute shit too. And he didn't know if the closest thing he had to a father now was alive or not.

Cas nodded, once, and then disappeared.

And Sam couldn't stop himself from going away too.

 

**…**

 

After an indistinct amount of time, Sam woke up again to a shake on his shoulder, a gravelly voice calling his name. "Sam."

His eyes fluttered open, finding Cas' blue ones above him.

"I found Bobby confined in the library. He is alive, but he has a head injury and is severely dehydrated. His vitals are not optimal."

Sam closed his eyes, letting out a shallow exhale. Of course. Of  _course_.

"I…" Cas began, hesitant, something Sam hadn't ever seen him be. The angel looked away. "I can only heal one of you."

Cas' powers were limited now, ever since he had been cut off from heaven. He might have used up some recently too before he teleported over to here, and Sam didn't think they had the time to wait for him to recuperate.

Sam swallowed, trying to moisten his mouth and throat enough to talk, but he couldn't muster any. He managed to work his vocal chords enough to say, "Bobby…"

The angel stared unfathomably down at him for a moment. It could either be a look of curiosity and contemplation or something unkind, something directed at the taint in his blood or the black in his soul. Sam's brain wasn't functioning well enough at the moment to try and figure out which one it was.

"I will be back, Sam," Cas said, something almost unnoticeable and strangely hushed in his tone.

 

**…**

 

He returned back to wakefulness again, heavy eyes dragging open. Cas was sitting beside him on the cot. He looked pale and fatigued, which Sam assumed was associated with the exhaustion of his power.

"I have healed him. He is well now. However, he may need a lot of rest to fully recover."

Sam breathed a light, wispy sigh of relief. His lips flickered slightly into a miniscule smile. "Thank...you."

Cas nodded once in acknowledgment of his gratitude, a small, awkward bob of his head.

He then pressed his fingers to his wrists, almost gently, on the chains binding them together. The handcuffs clicked themselves open. Cas moved his hands under his back, careful of the dislocated shoulder, but Sam winced weakly anyway, a small strangled, hitched gasp escaping from his lips. His body was folding into some of the wounds.

Sam soon found himself settled against the angel's chest. He didn't think Cas, who wasn't yet very well-versed in human customs, was really aware that this was usually a gesture of affection or comfort. It was more out of a practical intent in order to have a secure grip on him when he teleported him over to a hospital, but the warmth and solace felt nice, so he let himself fall into it, leaning his weight into the angel. He was mildly concerned about the effects the teleportation would have on him, considering he was seemingly running on the last vestiges of his grace.

"You...gon' be...okay?" His voice came out airy and hushed, weary.

"Yes," Cas responded, arm wrapping around his back to hold him properly.

Sam gave a barely visible nod, a slight brush of his head against Cas' trenchcoat.

 

**…**

 

The hospital staff were rushing over to them, where the angel knelt, cradling his limp body.

Sam gripped Cas' collar, fingers trembling. The elevation of his arm took more out of him than he wished it did, and the darkness was trying to drag him under again. His fogged vision tried to focus in on Cas' face, who was staring down at him inquisitively.

"Somethin'...wrong with De'n…" Sam croaked out, the words feeling thick and heavy on his uncooperative, sandpaper tongue. He hoped Cas could understand that there was something else that was wrong with Dean too by that, besides the obvious. "Need you t'...f-find him, Cas. Pl'se."

Cas was watching him silently, letting a brief moment pass between them, before he responded with one nod. "I will find him, Sam." It sounded like a vow, and maybe Sam imagined it, but his grip tightened just the slightest bit.

Sam nodded back, but it was too feeble and stuttered, his head feeling too heavy to move. "Ok," he breathed out softly. "Ok."

There were people then, surrounding him. They were pulling and pushing at him, lifting him onto something by a careful, firm grasp around his back to avoid jostling his shoulder too much. They were yelling things that weren't registering into his brain anymore, moving rapidly. Urgently. The tones of their voices sounded questioning, but he didn't know what they were asking. He kept hearing Cas' voice.

And Sam let himself go away again.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to apologize for any medical inaccuracies you may be seeing. I have tried doing my research (which I'm not entirely apt at), but I may still not be fully clear on it, so I'm very sorry if there's anything jumping out that seems wrong.
> 
> This was...a difficult chapter. To write. But this is the last of the physical hurt part of hurt/comfort. I can't wait to get to the comforting


	14. Chapter 14

  _Alternate Universe_

They patched up Sam's cracked ribs, stitched and cleaned up the wounds Cas couldn't manage to get to and transfused blood to him.

Dr. Morgan was insistent on involving the authorities into the case, but that was more trouble than they needed for a bunch of dickwads that have already been dealt out justice. They were going to get out of here soon anyway, so he supposed it didn't matter. She wanted to give Sam the day off to rest and let the cops come in tomorrow for questioning, which was just enough time for them to bail. Dean had sneaked Sam out of the hospital numerous times to be able to do it again on his own, before the next morning came with the police. She didn't have to know that they wouldn't be here tomorrow for them to ask questions from.

As soon as they found out what room Sam was being kept in, Cas went off  _without_  asking Dr. Morgan if it was permissible. He had to explain to her that Cas was their brother since they only allowed family visitors, which earned him a mildly skeptical look because, yeah, the guy bore no resemblance to them, so he promptly clarified that he was also adopted.

 _And_  that he was a bit socially awkward and slow.

When Dean entered, Sam was hopped up on painkillers and talking to Cas, a thoroughly stoned and drowsy expression on his face. Dean couldn't help but smile when he saw that he was smiling too (he hadn't seen that in a while now, ever since he got on this damn world).

But some part of him wished that he was still the one Sam looked at first and smiled when he woke up drugged to the gills, the way it had always been.

But the feelings dissipated away and he felt guilty for ever feeling like that at all, because he remembered that the person Sam thought him to be had no right to feel this way. Cas was the only one Sam had for a time here, and he hadn't seen him in  _weeks_ , so of course he would be glad to see him.

And not at all glad to see Dean.

When Sam caught his eye over Cas' shoulder, his smile flickered away slowly. His glassy gaze hazily flitted away, and he shifted slightly on the bed with unease.

And that did something painful to his heart. It seemed that even when he was merely standing there in the doorway, he stole away his brother's happiness.

His breathing rate was beginning to pick up, sounding clear in the quiet of the room.

Dean didn't know whether to run far, far away or to come forward and do his job.

It didn't take him long to decide to do what he always had, which was trying his best to soothe all of his kid brother's fears and hurts away. Dean's feet led him forward, steps light and unsure, as he came to stand next to the bed, looking down at Sam. The kid struggled to meet his eyes even more when he was this close, eyes flicking over to root to a spot on the ceiling.

"Cas, you mind giving us a minute?"

Cas nodded. "I must take my leave right now anyway."

Sam's head then lifted towards the angel, and he had this conflicted expression on his face as if he  _needed_ Cas to stay, but he wasn't going to let himself display any such vulnerability, or like he couldn't bring himself to, in front of Dean.

So instead he flickered a small, doped smile and slurred, "By', Cas."

Cas, characteristically, didn't return the farewell before he vanished.

Dean supposed he didn't only stay just to recover his dwindling powers.

He could only watch him for a moment, not able to figure out what to do, how to go about doing what he had always done in a dynamic so different. They were so out of rhythm, when before in his own world, he would barely have to think about what to say or do to make Sam ease down in an instant. Sam's clouded gaze was unfocused at the ceiling, his nasal breaths coming out shakily and irregularly. His body was visibly rigid and taut against the bed. He didn't seem to have any of the control he displayed over his emotions when sober.

Dean eased down on the edge of the bed, careful not to be crowding in too much. He hesitated for a brief moment before he mustered the confidence to reach out a hand, but he didn't know if that would only make things worse right now in Sam's morphine-and-anxiety-addled state.

"Can I, uh…" Dean swallowed slightly. He wanted to go back to a world where he didn't have to ask his little brother if it was okay to touch him, where he didn't have to feel guilty for wanting to, where it had been as effortless and natural as breathing between them. "I'm going to put my hand on you right now, kiddo. You okay with that?"

Sam blinked. For a moment, he stared blankly up at the ceiling, as if his mind was still processing his words, and then his features twitched into a mildly confused frown, like he wasn't sure why Dean was asking, or why he'd want to touch him. Dean couldn't tell what it was about, but despite that, Sam gave a droopy nod in response, like his head felt too heavy for him to move it, slow and tentative and jerky. He did that a lot here.

Dean wanted to fucking throw something at the thought that he couldn't tell whether it was  _actually_  okay or that Sam was too afraid to deny him anything.

His jaw clenched momentarily, hand hovering above him. He finally settled it on the side of Sam's head, barely pressing, but his fingers buried into his hair. He didn't flinch away the way Dean half-expected, which was only due to him alerting Sam first.

"Hey." He licked his lips, hand pressing more to brush it over the side of his scalp. He wished it would soothe him the way it soothed his own Sam, but the kid was still struggling to keep himself steady. "Breathe, Sammy. Breathe. Everything's okay."

Sam gave another heavy nod, trying to comply, writhing slightly in his attempt to actively loosen his muscles, but he didn't relax.

Dean moved his hand down to Sam's torso, rubbing his knuckles lightly against his sternum. "Everything's okay, kiddo. You're safe. You're safe," he murmured. He took one of his huge, thin hands with his other hand and placed it against his own chest. "Breathe with me."

"S'rry," he choked out, and Dean wished he would just stop fucking apologizing for shit that wasn't his fault. He wished he didn't have to be so fucking afraid that he would set him off just because he lacked the inhibitions to control his frantic emotions. As much as Dean had wished that Sam seeing him come and save him would solidify a bit of trust and progress between them, he had already figured it out that it wasn't enough to override months worth of haunting trauma and abuse. "S'rry, 'm-'m tryin'..."

"I know, buddy," Dean said. "I know. And that's alright. Take your time."

Sam blinked, before slowly giving a small nod. "O-ok."

"You're okay," Dean said, gruff and soft, kept up the motions against his brother's chest (kept feeling his heart fucking  _hammering_  rapidly against his fingers), his own steadily rising and falling against Sam's hand. Sam tried to follow his breathing pattern, actively trying to inhale and exhale according to his rhythm, trying to relax his muscles. Dean hoped Sammy's inherent, childhood-born inclination to calm down at his touch and his voice could still be functioning, even though he highly doubted it. "You're okay."

But surprisingly, it was.

Maybe because decades worth of tendencies won out over the horrible trauma of these past shitty months. Maybe it was the drugs that were lowering Sam's awareness, his inhibitions and fight-or-flight survival instincts, reducing down the full extent of that traumatic terror, but the kid's breathing eventually began to slow down, even if not entirely yet.

"D-do we 'ave... t'leave… r'ght now?" Sam slurred suddenly, even as the fumbling to talk right made the words slow. He shifted on the bed, clouded gaze rooted to the ceiling. It sounded like he was trying to distract himself. "I c'n...c'n get rea-dy if…'f we do…"

"Nah," Dean responded, hands retreating away. He clasped them together, the tangle of them hanging between his lap. He swallowed, trying to smile, but it came out as a tight grimace. He wanted to not feel useless, wanted to feel like he was still the only thing in the world that could calm his little brother's fear, his erratic heartbeats. Now he was the reason for their instability. "You need your rest for now, bud. Plus you're too out of it to help us any in getting out of here."

Sam's dazed eyes dragged over to him. He didn't say anything for a moment.

And then he did, "'re you g'nna… l-leave me 'gain?"

It made something ache in Dean's chest.

Something always ached in him here in this world.

Dean looked away from his brother's heavy-lidded, drowsy-soft eyes. It was still somewhat of a dilemma, because with hunters on his brother's tail, with all those tales demons were spreading around, Sam was not as safe on his own as Dean thought he would be. He abandoned him and now he was lying on a hospital bed after being tortured for nearly a week in god knew what ways (in all honesty, Dean thought it helped a  _lot_  that he didn't really know). Funny how he provided his brother with every hunting supply to defend himself against any monster that would come his way before he left, and yet, had never factored in the monsters of the human kind.

Yet, he himself was turning exactly into that. God knew how long, but he would soon be no better than any of those monsters, than the man he had become here. He had had three episodes in the past week, two or three days apart. They were brief and mild bouts of anger that felt far too clear and deep and different than what it normally felt like, but stronger than it was the week before, and he could sense it growing more and more with every damn dose of it, could feel himself lose just a bit of his sanity every time it happened.

He could feel himself lose a piece of himself with every nightmare that he saw of the occurences in this world, and he needed to  _leave_. He needed to get out of here.

So where did he go from here?

"I...I'll d-do b'tter." Sam's voice grew frantic, cracking, and even though he was trying to school back the emotions, he wasn't entirely able to succeed by courtesy of the drugs. His drooping eyes, though dry, were red-rimmed with a burn of oncoming tears and heavy with a sorrow and painful desperation. It made Dean's chest feel heavy too. "I-I'll...fix ev'rythin', 's-swear...jus' don'..."

Ah  _fuck_.

"Don' go…"

Dean's throat clogged with a hard lump. It had been such a long fucking day ( _week_ , really).

He swallowed. "Sam," Dean said. He found himself reaching out again, wanting to touch him, fingers left hovering over his face again. Dean gripped his chin to make him meet his misted, unfocused eyes with his own. He was too out of it to even cringe away from him guardedly the way he normally would. "Sammy, hey. Hey, listen to me." He framed his face in his hands, making sure his gaze was turned towards him as best as it could. "I'm not going anywhere, kiddo. I'm staying right here, and I'll be right here when you wake up, I promise."

And he supposed he made his choice then.

Sam's heavy, fatigue-bruised eyes were slipping shut, rolling back. "Hey." Dean shook him lightly, because he needed him to  _know_  that it had never been his fault. Sam's eyes jerked open into view again, lowering back to a drowsy squint of hazel slits. "I said I wasn't leaving 'cause of you. I meant that." He wished to god he could tell Sam the truth about everything, but now wasn't the right time because he wasn't fully lucid, so he doubted he would remember much after he woke up. He didn't even know if there was any point in explaining all of this to him right now, but god knew the kid was trying to stay awake, trying to listen long enough for Dean to finish, and it reminded him of when he was four and five and six, not wanting to sleep until he heard the ending of Dean's made-up, bedtime stories and god _damn_  it, he remembered how that used to piss him off because the whole point of Dean babbling on and on about magical worlds of fucking dragons and knights and shit when all he wanted to do was pass out was so that Sam would fall asleep to them.

He wondered how the him of this world never thought of that sweet, innocent little kid, that he loved more than anything, before he ever let himself touch Sammy like that.

"I left 'cause of me. I can't tell you why yet, but that's the truth. You just gotta believe me on that for now."

And through the drugged, slackened features, there was that unfathomable expression creeping onto his face again, something soft and lost and confused deepening into his gaze again.

"You're… diff-er'nt…" he finally mumbled after a long moment, vocalizing a thought that Dean assumed had been there for a while (probably ever since this whole damn thing started for him) but hadn't ever been able to express or make sense of. "I can'... I can't... fig're it... out…"

And then the furrow in his brows were easing away as his eyes began to lower shut again. Dean let them, tenderly brushing back his hair as he watched him fall asleep.

"All in good time," Dean whispered, one corner of his lips quirking in something of a rueful half-smile. The truth had been long overdue, and he would have to tell it to Sam soon once he was in the right frame of mind to hear it. "For now, you don't worry about a thing, little brother."

He ran his hand through his brother's locks in solace for a long while, a somewhat rare display of tenderness and affection that had began to grow far too common here.

Sam's face was smoothed out in peace, which Dean attributed to the heavy-duty painkillers he was on that numbed his physical pain and pushed him into deep slumber (and maybe,  _maybe_ , by Dean's fingers moving through his stupid, girly mop of hair, even if it felt wrong and undeserving to hope for that, to  _want_  that). In all the time he had been with Sam here, his features had always been tight and scrunched up with hurt or distress in his sleep.

He thought of all the things Sammy had ahead of him here, the kind of life he was meant to suffer through yet. When Dean would go, the other him would return in his place, and he would undoubtedly pick up right where he left off.

Assuming that the future he had seen was real, the course of events written for this world would go as Dean had learned they would.

" _Demon-fucker falls off the wagon_."

Was  _this_  where it all started?

Was this the memory that Psycho-Dean would remember if he returned, that would set the horrendous chain of events that were possibly in store for his brother into motion? It wasn't as if Sam even  _wanted_  to drink the demon blood, but he figured it wouldn't matter to someone as delusional and irrational as the demented lunatic he was here.

It seemed that this entire world was against his brother here, and here was a damn world where Sam was so much more saddeningly vulnerable than he was where Dean came from (and god _damn_  it, did it kick his rusted overprotective big brother instincts into overdrive). It wouldn't have mattered so much if the only person that was supposed to stand between him and everything else in this stupid fucking universe had done his job right.

Dean ran his thumb over a blue bruise on his cheek, mouth crumpling into a mournful, angry grimace. His heart was shriveling up into itself, felt like it was about to bleed.

He leaned down and pressed his lips gently to his brother's bandaged forehead in a kiss, hand resting on the side of his head.

When he withdrew, he took Sam's hand in his own, enclosing around it loosely and tugging it up to his own cheek. Felt girly as shit for it, but it wasn't as if Sam would ever know, and for once, the sentimentality of such a touchy-feely gesture just didn't seem to matter as much, not when he thought of the kind of things he saw in his dreams every night.

He found the words working out of his throat before he could think, moving past his lips in quiet murmurs to his sleeping little brother.

"I'll take care of you, okay? I'll keep you safe."

And then Dean scoffed derisively at himself, because he'd only been here three weeks and he let Sammy get hurt  _twice_ , once by a shapeshifter and again by those sick fucks.

But the sincerity and meaning in those words, the need to make sure nothing hurt his brother ever again with him here, blazed in his veins ardently. He would do anything and everything to protect him from any demon, angel, monster or human douchebag.

And he would protect him from himself, no matter what.

He thought of his dreams again, of the things he saw himself doing, and wondered how anyone, any variation of him, could have failed so disgustingly.

How did he hurt his own flesh and blood kid brother, his own damn  _kid_  in pretty much every way but by what he called him, and not feel a fucking thing about it?

"As long as I'm here, I'll be your big brother," Dean promised, his voice rough and soft, thumb stroking the back of Sam's baby-smooth hand.

 

**…**

 

By night, they were checked in at the nearest motel since Sam still needed his rest. He was still tuckered out from the lingering effects of morphine and debility, so he slept the whole way in the backseat of the stolen car too, even if it didn't look to be a peaceful and comfortable one.

Dean called Cas for one more favor; to zap the Impala in Garber, based on Sam's word, over to Bobby's. If the man saw their car in the garage, he would probably know that they were heading his way soon.

He parked the car outside their new motel room. The building looked even shabbier and more dilapidated than the usual they stayed in, but right now, all Dean wanted was a bed for Sam to be horizontal on because that cramped backseat didn't look too cozy for his yeti-sized body, and all the crunching up had to be bad on his injuries, particularly the ribs.

"Sammy!" Dean called out over his shoulder. He reached behind him to tap his folded legs. "Dude, we're here."

Sam jerked awake and immediately tried to scramble himself into a sitting position as if he was on some deadline for getting upright within five seconds. Ah, fuck.

Dean opened his side of the door and got out of the car quickly.

He hauled open the backseat door, and Sam stilled in his continued struggle to force himself upright in the cramped backseat, wide eyes peering up at him with that goddamn apprehensive look again, now tightened with pain and fatigue, chest jouncing slightly too high. "Easy, tiger," he said lightly. "The room ain't running away, you know."

Dean slid his hands under the back of his shoulders and began to help him up. Sam winced and tried to draw away slightly, whether from discomfort or his touch. "Come on, nice and slow, little brother."

He continued to slowly lift him up into a sitting position, eliciting a strangled, choked noise from Sam as he grimaced tightly. The movement was exerting pressure on his ribs. "Alright. Alright," Dean soothed, arms slipping under his shoulders to hold him up straight. Keeping up his six-foot-four Sasquatch of a brother wasn't as difficult as he remembered it to be, and he didn't like that one bit. "I got you. Can you move your legs to the floor?"

Sam leaned against backboard of the car for support and moved slowly, like his body felt like too much of a weight, when he slid his legs off to the floorboard of the car. Soon his boots were touching the pavement of the parking lot too.

Dean caught him by the armpits again, elevating him out of the car gradually. Sam didn't fight him, didn't get annoyed at how he was treating him too carefully, like he was handling something fragile. There were times when his brother sought the tenderness, when things were too bad (the way they were now), but more often than not, he would have told him off back where he came from. At least, that was  _before_  things went to shit and Sam still felt like he had any place to.

Here, Sam did neither. He didn't lean into him and he didn't push him away. He just quietly went along with his light manhandling, subdued and malleable and compliant, like it didn't matter whether Dean shoved him around or held him like he would break if he pulled too hard. The thought left him slightly hollow. "I got you, kiddo," he murmured, his voice rough and too soft, couldn't help but be too soft with him when all Dean had been seeing nowadays was him getting hurt, asleep and awake. "I got you."

In the next moment, Sam was fully out and standing. He was leaning heavily against him, fingers clutching into Dean's shirt as he was hunched over in pain and lassitude, jaw clenching tightly. As soon as Sam become aware of their proximity, however, his trembling hands released quickly, stumbling back slightly. Dean caught his arm in an instant, slid his own shoulders under it and wrapped his own arm around his waist before the kid dropped back against the car and hurt himself even more.

And they began walking in complete silence to the room, not a word spoken.

When he let go of Sam's arm around his shoulder to reach into his pocket for the key, he caught a brief glimpse of Sam staring at him in his peripheral vision. With one short, dart of a glance, he read his face.

It was  _that_  look again, lost and confused. It was settled on his softened features, and it punched the breath out of Dean's lungs.

 

**…**

 

Dean's eyes flew open in the middle of the night, gradually fading dredges of red and fiery images still stuck in his mind. There was sweat coating his body, heart battering in his chest.

But that wasn't what woke him.

His Sammy radar was in overdrive. There were sounds of hushed, restrained retching, as if he was desperately trying to make as less noise as possible.

"Sammy?" he called out groggily, fumbling hand reaching over to turn the lamp on.

The low retching stuttered before it stopped, as if he was trying to hold it back. Dean sobered fast when the situation registered in his brain.

It didn't work anyway. The gagging and retching and wheezing came right back. Dean shot out of bed, feet planting into the carpet as he slid off and whipped to his feet, and rushed over to where Sam was, the silhouette of him visible in the yellow lamplight combined with the dim moonlight streaming in through the windows. He was in front of the desk, hunched over as his fingers gripped the curved edges of the waste-bin beneath, which was most probably the closest thing he could get to with the kind of agony he had to be in. The painkillers had to have worn off, and the puking had to be hell on his ribs right now.

When he had crossed the ten feet distance between them, he dropped to his knees beside him, one hand going around him to rub small circles on his upper back, the other moving his hair out of the way.

Sam tried to restrain his gagging again, swallowing it down. "I was… tryin' t'be... quiet…" His voice was strained from the stomach acid and contracted throat. His head was bowed over the bin, almost like he was actively trying to avoid showing his face. He was shaking uncontrollably, and there was heat radiating off of him through his sweaty undershirt to Dean's palm, now simply resting on his back.

Infection?

"Nah, come on, man. Don't do that," Dean admonished. There was a hard shiver wracking up Sam's body, muscles rippling beneath his palm. "You gotta let it all out, Sammy. It'll make you feel better."

Sam gagged, but he was shaking his head. Dean sighed, couldn't help but brush his hand over his hair. "Come on, kiddo. Don't hold it back."

"Won't...be lou-loud," Sam managed to squeeze out thickly, head ducking down a bit more, like he was clenching his eyes shut. "You should...g-go back…t'sleep."

It was frustrating that he thought  _that_  was what Dean cared about more.

"Like hell I am!" he snapped out before he could think about it, and Sam flinched weakly. Dean clenched his eyes shut and wished he could punch himself in the face without looking insane, because all this time here, and he still hadn't fucking  _learned_ , and it wasn't as if Sam didn't have any reason to think like that. He softened his voice. "Can't go to sleep if I'm worrying over your ass anyway, so…"

Sam was silent, harsh tremors racing up and down his body as he sat slouched.

His breaths were hitching.

Not only like he was in excruciating discomfort and pain, but…

Fuck.

"Y-y'u should… go back…" he whispered. Even as he tried to level his voice, he wasn't exactly in the best frame of minds to be able to have such mastery over his emotions. Thus, it wasn't entirely successful, because Dean could still hear the quiver in his voice. His head nodded slightly, like that would convince Dean to, and like the way he did when he was...

When he was trying not to cry.

He was afraid.

And he was fucking trying not to  _cry_.

Sam heaved again, lurching forward slightly to curl over the bin some more.

There was a strange smell to the room, which was finally beginning to filter into Dean's senses.

It was far too familiar.

Images of the panic room threaded its way into his mind. Sam, lying on the cot, sweaty and shivering, the same scent permeating the air from the puddle of vomit on the floor. Sam seizing, slammed into walls by something invisible and muscles convulsing on the floor. Sam's voice through the heavy metal door, screaming for his freedom. Begging for his poison.

Dean glanced back to Sam's bed. In the dim lamplight casted on it, he could see the bile mixed with dark red staining Sam's bed sheets, trailing across the carpet, where his body tried to dispel the substance out of his system and he couldn't get himself to reach the bin on time.

And in that moment, it triggered something Dean did  _not_  want for to be triggered.

Not around Sam.

But the beast was awakening inside of him again. One he was familiar with from Hell, from his dreams.

Fuck, why  _now_  of all times?

Dean's hands slowly retreated from his back and hair. Sam must have noticed the shift in the atmosphere, because he was curling over the bin even more, like he was trying to hide in it.

"I...I'll clean...it up, De'n…" Sam choked out, his voice caught on a sob. "I'll c-clean…"

It started with a burn, clearer and deeper and far too different from anything normal he had ever felt.

He remembered Hell, how its flames burned outside in, all sanity and sense and reason evaporating up in smoke.

It would grow and grow and grow, spreading in his body like a cancerous disease. With every episode that passed, it only seemed to become more rapid in speed.

"You drying out?"

There was still objectivity and lucidity pushing back against the disease, enough for him to not be completely lost in the darkness of the writhing, wrathful beast inside the cages of his body. He would hold on to that firmly and desperately by the skin of his teeth, hold on to that slippery thread that still tethered him to his rationality and humanity in these moments.

That bit of him that still loved his brother more than anything in this world.

He would hold onto that like his life depended on it, but in those ten to fifteen minutes, it would take every bit of steely willpower in every fucking fibre of his being to.

But he would.

Sam wasn't heaving and gagging anymore, only silently bent over the bin. His muscles were tensed even more so, as still as he could be with his wracking chills and shaking terror, but he made this small, strangled sob that shuddered up his body, died out as quick as it came in desperate restraint.

It was all the confirmation he needed.

He shot up to his feet and strode towards the door, grabbed his jacket on the way from the back of the chair. He hauled it open, his rigid, scrunched up muscles forcing the door to slam loudly.

Dean didn't take the car. He stormed down the pavement instead, cold, rapid air puffing out of his lips unsteadily in fogged wisps as he did.

And then he began to run.

And he didn't stop for a long time.

 

**...**

 

He found himself standing in an alley on an unpopulated, quiet street, all the muscles in his body burning with exertion.

Something inside of him burning ten times worse.

Dean could feel the darkness metastasizing through to the deepest layers of his soul, trying to reach towards the core, rotting him inside out. It was shriveling and twisting up his innards nauseatingly with inhumane loathing and revolt.

The white-hot, blinding rage, smoldering with ineffable ferocity like the flames of Hell itself were beginning to fire throughout his body, dimming his awareness and coloring the world red and dragging him away like a tide.

He was gasping and wheezing, breaths coming out short and hard and fast.

His knees buckled and the world tilted wildly as he fell against the brick wall, the sharp pain slamming into the joint of his shoulder muted into the back of his mind by everything else. There was sweat beading on his forehead as the torrent of charring vehemence overwhelmed his senses until it  _hurt_ , until he wanted to throw up. The hard, raw scream ripped out of him through his grinded teeth, and it felt like it was ripping at his throat too, to the point where he tasted blood in the palate of his mouth.

His mind was screaming too.

Sickening rage and wild barbarity and misdirected abhorrence. Violence slithered into his dazed blur of thoughts, which seemed to forcefully grasp at every event and reason and excuse that would feed this paroxysm of ferocious sadism and brutality unfurling within him.

They all mostly led towards the closest things.

Towards the past year.

Towards Sam.

The remembrances combined with these nauseating feelings made him want to take these hands and close them into fists as hard as stones, hands that craved the sick and twisted satisfaction of spilling blood with violence, of its catharsis of releasing these flames within him. They made them throb with the momentum of wanting to slam painfully into flesh and bone and body, into  _Sam's_ —

"NO!" Dean yelled skywards at nothing, loud and hard and raw, control wrenching back into his mental grip for a brief moment before it began to slip again. His gut lurched dangerously and he gagged, chest jouncing high and fast. His overwhelmed body felt hot and sweaty, pressed up heavily against the wall, face crumpled with rage and savagery and tears.

He turned and slammed his fist into brick walls instead, strangled cries of fury bursting out of him as he did over and over and over. In the delusional haze of this disease, through the flicker of clarity still hanging on feebly that stopped his awareness from drowning completely, he wondered if hurting himself bad enough would stop these hands from hurting his brother.

 

**...**

 

By the time it ended, Dean was beat.

By the time he reached the motel, he wanted nothing more than to pass out.

There was fatigue weighing down on every muscle in his body, a searing throb in his swollen, bleeding knuckles, and he focused on it to make the last, hushed dredges of the darkness fade away.

It was the worst one he had had so far.

And the terror coiled around his ribs when he thought of how much worse they would get the longer he stayed here, because he knew that this was far from being at its peak.

He gripped the doorknob. The door was still unlocked, which he suddenly realized was a stupid move, because it made it just a bit easier for anyone to get in and…

Dean breathed, closing his eyes. Fuck, he was so damn exhausted. Even thinking was painfully draining at this point.

He twisted the doorknob and pushed it open.

His gaze went first to Sam's bed. It was still empty, still stained with puke.

It then shifted towards where Sam actually was.

Sleeping right where he left him, leaning his full weight onto the side of his shoulder against the desk, the bin still next to him, like he couldn't hold himself up on his own. Couldn't get himself up long enough to move to his bed instead. His head was slumped forward in his slumber, shadowed eyes closed and his pale face furrowed into a pained and uncomfortable grimace. The front of his t-shirt also had a patch of filth mixed with red, dried on his lips too.

He moved into the room and closed the door behind him with a click. Sam jolted awake, hazel eyes fluttering open groggily. His gaze finally focused after a brief moment as it landed on Dean, and he hastily straightened up against the desk, palms pushing himself up on the ground. There was a nervousness on his face, attempted to be schooled away, and he was looking at Dean with those weary, kicked fucking  _eyes_  like he thought he came back to break more of his already broken body.

He wished he never knew what it felt like to see his own kid brother looking back at him like that.

Dean walked over to him, every step feeling like lead against the ground. He wanted nothing more than to plop down on his bed and pass out, but he needed to take care of his brother first, needed to do right what  _he_  couldn't, needed Sammy to see that he could still depend on Dean to take care of him when he wasn't feeling so good, normal sick or sick with withdrawals or whatever. Dean wasn't ever going to leave him on his own with that.

Sam averted his stare when he was standing in front of him, subtly burrowing closer to the furniture supporting his body.

Whatever might still have been left of that darkness dissipated away with the sharp twist in his chest.

He held out his hand and Sam's breath hitched, head jolting away as his eyes fluttered rapidly.

And somehow, even after being so dried out and drained inside, he still wasn't able to stop himself from drowning in the overwhelming sorrow of that sight. It weighed down like boulders on his already exhausted body.

"Come on," he said softly. The tiredness came out too apparent in his voice. Sam didn't budge from his cowering, defensive position. And goddamn it, Dean was so fucking tired, and he was so fucking tired of all of  _this._ His eyes were prickling all of a sudden, vision blurring with something more than fatigue. He looked up and away, blinking hard to make them disappear.

Dean breathed, hand withdrawing to his hip as he twisted away slightly, the other washing over his features to regain control, and then he looked back. He crouched down to reach for Sam's arm, grasping it lightly, and Sam tensed up instantly against the contact. "Come on, Sammy."

Sam was not expecting anything good, judging by the resignation that was beginning to settle on his features, but he didn't plead or try to explain or bargain or attempt to calm him down, to try to mollify whatever violent predicament he was imagining he had ahead of him. He simply moved along with Dean's pushes and pulls silently, like a string puppet, standing up to his feet when Dean tugged at him to, shuffling his feet wearily across the carpet towards the bathroom with Dean's arms around him lightly ushering him forward.

Maybe that damn well should have been a good thing. But Dean knew it wasn't. Whatever was going through his brother's thick head, it wasn't anything full of hope or trust.

Dean led him to the toilet, sitting him down on the seat. He grabbed a washcloth, ran it under the tap water until it was soaked through completely, and then twisted the excess water out of it. He then turned and knelt down before Sam, one knee upturned. Sam was still shivering hard, still hunched over like he was too tired and weak to hold himself upright, his hands gripping the edges of the seat keeping him up. As if it wasn't already bad enough, now the withdrawals on top of it all were probably kicking the poor kid's ass.

"You think you could get the undershirt off from over your head?" Dean asked, not sure if that would hurt Sam. Maybe he should cut it off, he vaguely thought, before he realized what a crap idea that was considering their situation, taking a knife to him in his feverish state.

Sam didn't move for a moment, before he complied, slowly moving his quaking arms like they weighed a ton and curling his fingers into the hem of his shirt. He tried to raise it up, a feeble jolt of his arms, before they loosened and dropped slightly as if unable to get the necessary strength up. Dean helped him out of it, maneuvering his limbs around as he tugged the undershirt up and off. He made sure not to lift his arms too high in case it pulled at whatever stitches there might be on his back.

When the shirt was off and he  _saw_ …

Dean couldn't breathe.

He felt a renewed surge of fury at the sight, sobering him faster than anything from the haze of his bone-deep exhaustion.

Dean wished he could go back and fuck them all up himself instead, make all the same damn marks that they made on Sammy's body.

There were lashes across his body, multi-colored and swollen. Lacerations, some already scabbed by courtesy of angelic healing and others still angry and red. When he looked close enough, some of them came together to form a word underneath the black and blue mottled across his flesh.

 _Freak_.

Those sick  _fucks_.

His jaw clenched so hard it hurt, felt his eyes hardening with fury and disgust. He had half a mind to get Cas to bring those sons of bitches back from whatever deadly island he left them on and mutilate them to death  _himself_.

He didn't notice his own fists clenching against the edge of the toilet seat.

He only did when he saw Sam's hand painstakingly raise over it in his line of vision, shaky fingers hovering above the swollen and bruised knuckles. The searing throb had intensified by the broken skin stretching and becoming taut. Dean's grip loosened quickly, closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, trying his best to shove down the white-hot flames coursing wildly through his chest, because his anger and volatility to Sam here meant only thing and no way was Dean adding to that by losing it in front of him.

Sam's trembling fingers remained hovering indecisively over his hand for a second, twitching towards it.

It fell back to his lap tiredly after a moment, and Dean had seen enough of the past of this world to know what stopped him.

" _Touch me again with your filthy hands and I'll snap em' in two, you understand me_?"

It didn't feel good to remember the way he kept dodging his own Sam's hands too. The more logical part of him knew that wasn't the same thing, wasn't as brutal, but...fuck. This world had a way of making him feel like shit for  _everything_.

He had never before missed physical contact with his brother so much. Not the way it was here. Here, it kept feeling like he was trying to make it better but only making it worse, like Sam was just letting him touch him because he didn't know what else to do, didn't have the choice to tell him to fuck off if that was all he wanted.

He missed touching his baby brother and knowing that it was okay, that Sam found comfort in it too like he did (fuck, he missed him  _leaning_  into his hands like the huge girl he was), that it wasn't probably making his skin crawl and making him want to run and making him think of how bad it was about to hurt if he...

"You're ashamed 'f me," Sam mumbled, sudden and quiet, voice trembling along with his harsh body chills.

Dean stilled.

He then huffed in this mirthless, rueful way. "I think I'd...I'd have preferred it if you were just…"

The words left unsaid were better left unsaid, because maybe hearing them would have made Dean lose whatever grip he had over his emotions.

Shit, Dean was so fucking tired right now.

"Sam," he said warningly, but it came out too low and spent.

"I should have... fought harder." His weary face was pulled into a frown, lips pressed tightly into a thin, quivering line, eyes red-rimmed as he grew on the verge of tears. Sam had a history of getting weepy when he wasn't feeling too good, and that topped with months worth of trauma just made it ten times worse. He didn't seem to have enough energy to control his emotions, and considering the way Sam would expect him to have reacted to it, it said a lot about the kid's mental headspace and the extent of his emotional anguish right now that he couldn't. "Sh-should have been able to... s-stop them. I'm...I'm sorry, De'n."

"You couldn't have stopped them," Dean consoled, gruff and hushed. He wiped off the impurities that leaked through from his shirt on the kid's front. "It's not your fault."

"It was," Sam insisted, his eyes blurring completely now, chin quivering. "A-and you believe that too, don't you?" Dean paused. He really didn't, but he figured Sam would make sense of it all like this. "I...I don't know  _why_  you're acting like this, but I know…" He paused, swallowing slightly. He looked tentative, like he knew it wasn't something he should be mentioning. He inhaled a low, shuddering breath, teeth chattering slightly, and plowed through anyway. "I know you believe that I t-took it... 'cause I wanted it."

Sam seemed to be stuck in some sort of a massively confused and resigned limbo about the drastic change in Dean's behavior, where he was going along with what he thought was a false pretense without a word, even though he couldn't figure it out where it was all coming from, but sure and knowing that eventually one thing or another would set Dean off.

He wanted to tell him the truth, but the kid was most likely already overwhelmed by the recent events, and now with the withdrawals coming down on him... to find out that your brother wasn't  _really_  your brother from your world was a lot to take in, too much extra stress that he didn't need right now, so he would have to take a rain-check on that.

"Well, did you?" Dean asked, looking up at him, pursing his lips. It was an attempt at logically dislodging his brother's cycle of self-hatred and guilt and regret, at making him understand that he wasn't to blame, that he was still innocent and good. Sam was going to tell him,  _no, I didn't. I swear_. And Dean would say,  _Then that's that, alright?_  "Did you want to drink that blood?"

Except it didn't happen like that.

Sam's face fell, all wet eyes and quivering lips and pink face full of shame. Dean supposed it was a shitty question to ask, because instead of serving his purpose the way it probably would have back with his own Sam, it only came across as confirming what Sam thought, as Dean doubting him.

Why did he just keep fucking saying and doing all the wrong things?

And then Sam said, "I did." And his face crumpled completely, a stream of tears cascading down his cheeks on top of the sheen of sweat.

That, he didn't expect him to say.

"What?" was all he could manage, not being able to think of anything else to respond with, but it made the kid shrink in on himself, breaths hitching with oncoming sobs.

"I w-wanted...it," Sam gasped out, shame and disgust and emotion twisting up his mouth. He swallowed it down, brows furrowing together in an attempt for restraint, choking out hastily, "B-but I told them no, and I  _meant_  that, okay? I wasn't... going to, I swear." His voice was strained, forced out like he was running on the last reserves of his energy. He was looking at Dean, frowning dolefully, wet eyes soft with sorrow and weariness and desperation. "De'n, I  _swear_."

Maybe Dean got it now.

He got it in a way he had never been able to before.

Of course, he knew this, but it was a vague thought in the back of his mind that he never truly pondered on and understood. He never  _realized_  it.

But it hit him  _now_ , like a brick to the face.

Sam never asked for this.

He was fed his poison by some fucking yellow-eyed freak bleeding into his mouth before he ever even had a choice. A tiny little thing, no more than six months old, and the seeds of this horrible addiction already sown before he could even talk.

He never really realized just how sickening and wrong it all was.

Sam never asked for this.

And all this time, it was meant to be used to manipulate Sam into doing what forces beyond them wanted, screwing both of them over.

All that talk about him being a freak when he was a kid… had it all ever really been about the way they grew up? About his family? Or had it always been something deeper that he hadn't been able to name or explain or pinpoint until now? The hunger and emptiness akin to what addicts must have felt without their drug before he even knew what that was. Always something just not quite feeling right within him, something dirty and wrong (everything that Sammy  _wasn't_ ).

And then that bitch Ruby came along and shoved him right into that dark place. And maybe he had a choice then and he chose the wrong one, but goddamn it, his baby brother was doomed to fall from the start, and here he was, looking at Dean with that watery, broken and tired look, blaming himself for things that weren't all his fault, and he was still good and kind and  _Sam_.

And he didn't fall.

Sam had done some real shit in both worlds (so did Cas, so did  _Dean_ ), but he was a good kid who did the best he could, and he just never had a fucking  _chance_. Not against this. He didn't choose to have the potential to be addicted to this vile substance.

So it sure as hell didn't make him anything less than innocent and human.

And maybe this was what Dean hadn't been able to understand.

That Sam wasn't supposed to not want that blood.

Because of course, of  _course_ , Sam would want it, want it like he couldn't be whole without it, and the craving would always be there for him in a way, because that was something to him that was nothing less than cocaine and heroin to their users. Every fibre of his being would long for that blood, would make him feel like he needed it.

But Sam still chose to fight and he still chose to spit it all out and he still chose to tell them no and  _that_  right there, that was what mattered. Dean was certain as the next morning would come that the only reason those fuckers were able to make him drink was because he was too weak and tired and in too much agony to fight.

And Dean was fucking proud of him for being that strong.

And Dean couldn't imagine the courage and strength it took to admit that for his kid brother, his  _kid_ , who had all the reasons in this fucked up world never to mention this to him.

"I t-told them no, Dean," he choked out, breathless and desperate, his body shaking with detoxification and tears and apprehension. Dean had been silent too long, and silence was unpredictable in Sam's mind. Dean didn't want to think about what he was expecting out of him right now after that.

Dean moved the soaked washcloth close to his face, framing it with his other hand to hold it in place. "I know," he answered softly.

"I-I told them no," Sam repeated, wasn't yet convinced that Dean really did believe him, face crumpling brokenly as more tears fell. The words got muffled half-way through when Dean ran the cloth over his mouth.

"I know, kiddo," he murmured roughly, rubbing the cloth at the dried vomit on the corners of his lips. He brushed a thumb over the wetness on his clammy, flushed cheek, before settling it into the soft space behind his ear. "And I'm proud of you."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> So the next several chapters should focus on the AU world for now!
> 
> I also want to tell you that I'm going on a sort of semi-hiatus. I've run out of pre-written chapters for now, besides the next 4400 words, but I want to add more to that before I post it, so maybe I'll be able to get that one up soon, but after that, I'm not very sure when the next update will be. Hopefully sooner than I know. I want to tell you now because I don't want it to look like I disappeared and I'll never continue, because I have so many ideas and scenes that I want to share. I promise I will come back and finish this story. It might take a while, but I hope you can be patient with me *hugs* Thank you.
> 
> A huge thank you to all the readers and commenters. I appreciate it more than I can say that you would take time out of your lives and put in the effort to express your wonderful support and love for the story, to share your thoughts about my work. Thank you so, so very much, lovelies. It means so much! *hugs* Thank you so much to everyone who gave kudos, who subscribed to the story, to the new readers for giving my story a chance, to any silent readers that might be reading and to everyone who read this far. Thank you so, so very much from the bottom of my heart! *hugs* You're all awesome, each and every one of you. :)


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: blood and severe self-injury in the second italicized flashback. Please beware if such content is triggering for you

 

Dean led his brother over to his own bed. Sam was either too out of it at this point to realize it and say anything or couldn't be bothered to protest. It seemed more likely to be the former. The kid was swaying on his dragging feet as he carried him over, staggering more than walking. He felt his shudders against his own body.

Dean thought he should probably clean up the mess on Sam's, but he was just too damn exhausted to muster up that kind of energy. It would be rude as hell to leave it to the maid though. That was, if they even  _had_  any because this place looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years. The toilets _reeked_ and the stench hadn't taken long to diffuse out into the room.

Unfortunately, this tiny dump of a room had no extra bed sheets lying around and only had a single-seated couch, so his only other option would be to take the floor and the thought of doing that didn't sit well with him, as didn't the weird, unidentifiable (some perhaps  _very_  easily identifiable...okay, he was going to throw up) stains on the carpet.

Sharing a bed had been a necessity in their lives more times than he could count, mostly as children due to their father occupying the other queen-sized bed, but occasionally, the inevitability of it rose even as adults when there was only one room left and nobody wanted to take the nasty-ass floor or cramp into a too small couch. There had only been the annoyance of Sam's giant octopus arms flapping around in his sleep and smacking him in the face, and Dean had a subsconscious tendency to hoard all the covers at night, but other than that, it hadn't ever been much of a big deal.

But either way, sharing a bed certainly wasn't an option either right now. Not for Sam.

 _Guess I'll just have to suck it up and start scrubbing_ , he thought with a long-suffering sigh to himself. He could lay a towel over the wet patch on the bed that would be left behind.

Dean helped his brother down carefully to the bed, knowing he didn't have the option of manhandling him around too much at the moment. Sam fell against the board, leaning heavily against it, already half-asleep.

And as much as he loathed it, considering the sight he woke up to on the day he was sent here, he had to put Sam on the chains, attaching his wrist to the bed.

"It's just for your own good, okay?" Dean muttered when he saw Sam's eyes blink open to meet his, head against the headboard, his huge, thin hand grasped lightly in his own hand as he clicked the handcuff shut. He wanted more than anything not to have to do this, but he couldn't take the risk that the kid would try to escape or run in his detoxifying, feverish state. "I'm sorry, kiddo."

He made him knock back a few pills and wash them down with water. When he had Sammy settled on the bed, legs up on the mattress and covers up to his shoulders, he withdrew and began to stand up to his feet.

Only to be tugged back by a grip on his jacket sleeve.

He looked back to find Sam's trembling fingers tentatively clutching at it. His body was curled into himself as much as it could with the metal cuffs, shaking, and his expression had been initially hesitant, but nervousness and uncertainty had crept in into his half-mast, droopy eyes by the time Dean turned to glance at him. The grasp released quickly.

"S-s'rry… don'... know why I…"

"You want me to stay?" Dean cut him off.

Sam grew silent, mouth opening and then closing.

And that reaction alone said enough.

His radar, the one tuned into his brother's emotions, told him that the kid was craving a whole lot of comfort and support right now. The kid had been through hell and back these past couple of days ( _months_ ), and after the trauma of it and of thinking that he was going to  _die_  at the very hands of his own brother, being forced to drink down his drug and the detox, he probably needed something to ground and assure him, some sort of consolation from someone. Right now, there wasn't a whole lot of choice on who it came from.

But  _fuck_ , did he need it from  _him_? Dean didn't want to scoot in only to realize that he was making everything worse by being in such proximity, that what Sammy really needed was for him to get the fuck  _away_  from him.

But the kid took too long to shake his head, first slowly, and then fervently. He swallowed, jaw clenching momentarily, big puppy eyes full-blown, and goddamnit, that couldn't be deliberate, right? He couldn't really be making that damn face just to cause him the maximum amount of sheer pain in his chest. "N-no...no it's…s'fine."

Dean didn't know what to feel about the Stockholm Syndrome-y sense he got from that. On one hand, he wasn't the one guilty of hurting him, but on the other hand,  _Sam_  didn't know that and he was still reaching out to him. Then again, Dean had been trying to be as gentle as he could be with him, in the hopes that he could reprogram his mind towards understanding that he wasn't going to hurt him, that he was safe from him, even if it seemed futile until Sam would know the truth, or just futile, period. However, who was to say this flicker of trust hadn't been a result of that?

And though it was uncertain and thoroughly undeserved… Dean didn't want to let it go.

"You want me to stay close?" Dean repeated, casual and soft as it could be in his gruff voice. "I will, you know… if that's what you need."

Dean couldn't tell how much Sam believed him. He wasn't sure if  _Sam_  knew how much he did either.

Sam didn't say anything.

But he just quietly, slowly and so fucking  _tentatively_  scooted away to the furthest side of the narrow bed, metal chain sliding along on the iron bar of the headboard. He wasn't looking at him, eyes riveted down somewhere and away from Dean's face, shivering body shrunken into himself and head ducked so far down that Dean could only see a fraction of his face from this angle. He didn't seem too sure that Dean would follow through (and that said a  _lot_  about how much he needed this). Dean didn't want to think about how if it were the other him here instead, he could have used it against him, could have made a cruel joke out of it and hurt him.

Back in his own world, if anything like this had happened under different and better circumstances, he would have given him so much shit after things got settled down and Sam was feeling better enough to take it. Oh, how he would have. The thought made Dean snort, made him miss his stupid bitch face that had about a thousand other different variations for every situation and the way he would look simultaneously embarrassed and pissed as he would say, "Dean," in this half-threatening, half-petulant way following similar situations (situations that, more often than not, involved a stoned or drunk Sammy), and then Dean would tease the shit out of him even more for the way he sounded and Sam would snap at him to cut it out.

Here though, he knew he'd only feel like a massive asshole if he ever performed his typical antics in response to Sam's display of vulnerability, and not even in the funny way. Even if it wouldn't be anything close to Psycho-Dean's version of brutal mockery and teasing, it felt… wrong.

It definitely wouldn't feel good now, not at this point, after everything that had happened to lead Sam to this, to seek comfort from  _Dean_  of all people…

Albeit there  _had_  been a shift between them after tonight, and Dean was semi-certain that Sam had already figured out the truth half-way through after the recent events. Hell, he'd probably even had the suspicion way before, even if he hadn't acted in any way to show that he did (couldn't be blamed for that, not if one wrong move here could mean terrible things) but whatever had happened since yesterday had to have confirmed it to a great extent.

Back in his own world, Sam would have hated how fragile he was making him to be, but the truth was that he  _was_  fragile here.

He was the most fragile that Dean had ever seen him.

And god, it fucking hurt to see him like this.

Dean slid further up the bed until he was leaning back against the headboard. It was then that Sam raised his head. He blinked, peering up at him, like he hadn't fucking expected him to stay  _just_  because Sam needed him to.

It had always been the most basic fact of their lives that whatever Sam asked of him, as long as it didn't involve hurting him or letting him or any innocent people die, that Dean would do it.

He would lay down his own fucking life if the kid just asked him to.

 _That_  was how it should have been in every godforsaken universe out there. And Sam should have  _known_  that. He shouldn't have ever had to wonder or think twice about whether or not Dean would do his damn job and make things better for him however he could, do whatever it took to provide him with the consolation he needed, and especially if he needed it  _this_  bad.

This universe had gone so far off the reservation.

Despite Sam being at the furthest edge of the bed, the bed was so small that it left barely any space between them, but he made sure not to touch him, to give Sam the open space to close it of his own accord.

Sam smiled wanly at him, only a small, frail flicker of one, all sweaty and pale and flushed and trembling and tired, before his heavy hazel eyes slowly slipped to a shut. It only broke Dean on the inside with something he couldn't entirely pinpoint, but he returned a pathetic, feeble excuse of one too, came out too weak and tight on his cheeks, even if Sammy was out before he could see it.

Maybe the reason for his doubled heartache was because what Sam had had on his face looked a lot like hope.

**…**

Dean snapped back into the living world with a sharp breath leaving his lungs, curved back hurting against the headboard and heart hammering rapidly against his sternum, beating up in his throat. There was pain coiling around his insides, stretching it tight, an ache rotting in his chest as the phantom images of his dream played in his mind's eye again.

He could use a bottle of whiskey. Right the fuck  _now_.

But alcohol these days seemed too risky at a time when he might need to maintain all the control he had.

His mind registered within a couple of seconds that there was a weight leaning into his body, pinning him down. There was another weight across his outstretched knees on the mattress.

He looked down to find Sam, who must have gravitated towards Dean, a source of warmth in his detox-induced chills, somewhere throughout the night. He had one lanky arm sidled up against his thigh, fingers bunching up the side of the hem of his shirt, cheek burrowed into his ribs. His other, chained hand was raised up to the headboard, and it looked awkward and borderline painful. He didn't look peaceful, forehead scrunched with pain and distress.

Dean exhaled nasally, lifting a hand and hovering it over his head. It jerked up for a brief moment, hesitant, before he slowly proceeded to lower it, burying it into the kid's hair as he glanced away. He hoped it didn't wake him. His slumber was probably fragile at the moment due to his constant malaise and he wasn't sure how Sam would feel about being this close to him, but he didn't want to move him away in case that woke him up.

Yet, he couldn't bring himself to carefully maneuver out of his grasp either. He wrapped his hand around the back of his neck and squeezed gently, thumb coming to rest on the curve of where his head began. It seemed like this might be the closest he would ever get to him without feeling like hell for it.

God _damn_  it, this damn kid was making him trample over all his reservations against mushy shit.

He let go of his nape and tenderly carded a hand through Sam's brown locks. Dean stilled when his fingers caught on a knot lightly, and he stirred in his sleep, scrunched features twitching for two seconds, before he settled back against him. Apparently, contrary to what he thought, the exhaustion was seemingly hitting his brother hard.

And then Sam jerked in his sleep, metal clanging above him, his grip on Dean's shirt tightening. He shrunk even further into his curled up form as he whimpered.

"No...no. S-s'rry. S'rry." His head jolted, rolling slightly back and forth. His breaths were growing short and rapid, chest jouncing high and low. "No...pl'se d-don'... "

Dean closed his eyes and waited for the searing throb inside of him to subside. God knew what he was dreaming about, because he sure had a lot of traumatic shit that could serve to haunt him in his sleep. Dean breathed in and out slowly.

"J-jus… jus' listen, pl'se…" He sounded like he was nearing a full-on freak out, croaky and cracking and frantic.

 _Well, fuck_ , he thought, washing a down across his features.

Yeah, he was  _bulldozing_  over Dean's no chick flick moment rule.

But he couldn't bring himself to care when he thought about everything Sammy had gone through here in these last however many months, with comfort and affection probably being so scarce in his life. Sure he had had Cas, and Dean was  _beyond_  grateful for that, but considering that the angel had most likely been busy throughout the duration and was cut off from their lives for an entire month, the pain and sorrow Sam had gone through seemed to have outweighed all the good.

"Sam." He bent down so he could be heard without having to raise his voice. He smoothed a hand over his furrowed forehead. "Sammy, hey. Open your eyes, man. It's just a dream." But Sam was only growing more and more agitated, jerking against him with a choked noise.

Dean sighed lowly before he carefully slid down on the bed until he was lying down next to him, slipped an arm beneath his neck and encircled it around his upper back, fingers coming to rest on the joint where his shoulder met his bicep. This could either make things better or fuck it all up even more. "Hey, hey, hey." He cupped his cheek in his other hand. "It's okay, Sammy. Everything's okay. I got you."

Sam's hazel eyes dragged open to half-mast, face still twisted in distress and fear and hurt. When he caught sight of Dean, still entrapped half-way in his nightmarish slumber, he made this strangled sound of a whimper, tensing up, and maybe that cleared things up pretty well on what he was dreaming about.

And he wanted to throw up.

Dean swallowed and stroked his hair back, brushing his knuckles across his jaw.

"Nobody's gonna hurt you, kiddo. I got you. I got you."

The nonsense murmurs and the touches soothed Sam back to sleep just as they did back where he came from, just as they did once here, back when things were better. Dean watched, something deep inside of him softening impossibly, as the kid relaxed almost entirely under his fingers, bruised eyes sliding back shut, breaths evening out. The distress and fear abated from his expression, soothing into a smoothed, serene face.

He couldn't tell why it hurt, but it did.

Dean pulled the blankets up over his baby brother's body and pulled him closer to his chest, hitching his brother's lower torso and legs in with his other hand. His nose pressed into his hair, threading his fingers through the back of his locks. He breathed quietly against his forehead, his hold tightening around him.

He couldn't understand how he had ever let it all happen in this world.

When he was sane, when he was in his right mind…

How could he have let it come to this?

**…**

_He was sitting on the floor of the bathroom, slumped against the barricade of the bathtub, ears ringing and head fuzzy and something burning, pushing and pulling in sickening ripples, white-hot flames festering somewhere deep in his core where he couldn't pinpoint. Darkness was clouding his rapid haze of thoughts again, possessed by Hellfire._

_Violent images. Blood and bruises and broken bodies. It was coming back again, fighting to take over the driver's seat of his mind, trying to shove his sanity in too deep for him to find again and lock it away. His awareness of the world around him, of himself, was dimming, struggling to resurface constantly from the black water trying to drown him._

_Sam was outside of the motel room, God knew where doing God knew what. Dean was still there enough to be grateful that he wasn't here, even if the suggestions flashing into his head as to_ where _he might be were feeding the nauseating paroxysm of barbaric sadism twisting up all over inside of him, the throb of cold, smoldering rage, the voidless black of pure evil metastasizing through his soul._

_He was shaking. The knife in his hand was shaking too._

I need it out _, was the repetitive thought, flickering through his fogged mind, that led him here._ I need it out of me.

_A thrashing, wild beast inside of him, foaming at the mouth and rattling the cages of his soul inside his body, pushing and pulling and screaming to be free._

_Maybe he could cut it out of him, could let it free like it wanted to be. He could cut it out of him and it wouldn't keep screaming inside his head anymore, wouldn't keep digging its claws into his soul and his insides, trying to rip itself out of him._

_It wanted blood and bruises and broken bodies. The feeling of cutting flesh and the sound of violence. Agony._

_Did it matter whose?_

...

_"I-I g't 't… outta. G't it… it's out… outta me…" he was babbling incoherently, grinning widely. Laughing. He was laughing too much and it hurt, bone-deep anguish firing throughout the tangle of nerves stretching throughout his body from one end to another, exploding like bombs in his legs, his abdomen, his torso. The floor beneath him felt sticky and thick, his wet, red-soaked clothes weighing down on him._

_He couldn't hear the beast screaming inside his head anymore._

_He couldn't feel the claws. The Hellfire. The darkness. The sickening malaise of craving agony and violence and bloody catharsis._

_"What did you do?" Sam was whispering, over and over, his voice frantic and terrified and flying apart. He sounded like he was crying, sounds of hard, quick rips of fabric tearing into Dean's ears, shaky, panicky hands scrambling helplessly between wrapping narrow sheets of swathes all over the trickling wounds and slashes on his throbbing body and pressing down on the long deep line dividing his body in two halves, top of his torso to the bottom of his abdomen, that bone-deep agony all over pulsing with his heartbeats. "What did you do? Oh god, Dean. What did you..."_

_"Don'... I don' feel…" He laughed again, and it lurched painfully around the knife in his burning gut, coughing blood stuck in his throat, sputtering out of his lips and onto his own chin and face. He felt Sam's hand tug at his arm, his body jerking slightly at the force, tightness swiftly encircling around his carved bicep. The sharp stab of pain didn't bother him at all. "Feel...g'd, S'mmy."_

_"You're so fucking stupid," Sam grinded out, but his voice was shaking uncontrollably. He sounded like he was pissed and like he was choking down a sob. "What the fuck were you thinking? Fuck, I'm out of…" He did sob then, a hard, gasping, rattled breath from his lungs. "Oh god…"_

_There were ambulance sirens screaming vaguely in the background, slowly coming closer and closer._

_"S'outta me n-now…" Dean mumbled, words running into each other. His hands felt like a ton of lead, and only managed to lift it to Sam's knee touching the tiled floor. "I c't it… c't it out…'n it ran..."_

**...**

Dean parked the car outside of the familiar house.

He glanced back at Sam in the backseat, curled up and trembling under the blankets he was swathed in. The detox was growing worse. If he remembered it correctly from the last time, it reached its peak in about three days. The kid caught his eyes, but for once, he didn't look away instantly, which was progress in his book.

"I'll be back, Sammy," Dean told him, reached out and patted his leg.

Dean opened the car door and slid out. In all honestly, the thought of facing Bobby was daunting, not only due to the secondhand shame and guilt he carried, but also because he would undoubtedly want to shoot him dead before he even got a word out.

But he mustered up all the courage he could and stepped up to the old man's porch. He jabbed a finger into the button and rang the doorbell.

The door opened after two minutes.

And as expected, he found himself facing the end of a shotgun.

The look on Bobby's face when he caught sight of him was predicted, when the identity of his visitor registered in his brain. Dean raised his hands up in a placating manner as soon as he saw the initial signs of his face twisting into pure fury and hatred, his eyes narrowing into a seething glare as he lifted his shotgun up even straighter.

"Bobby, hear me out—"

"Get the hell off my property," Bobby snarled lowly, a dangerous threat in his voice.

"Sam's with me, okay? He's in the car." He figured that might stop Bobby from murdering him straight away. He saw a flicker of fear flash across the old man's face, and that emotion wasn't exactly common with  _Bobby_. "He's—he's not doing so hot."

"What the hell did you do to him?" Bobby forced out through clenched teeth.

"Nothing, okay?" Dean quickly answered, a tinge of desperation and pain in his voice. "I swear, I didn't do anything. Bobby, look, it's a long story. I'll tell you all about it later. But right now, Sammy—" Bobby looked taken aback at the usage of that old nickname. "—he's drying out. Hunters got him and force-fed him demon blood. We gotta get him to the panic room, so you gonna let us in or what?"

Bobby's eyes widened slightly. He remained still in his wheelchair, shotgun still pointed firmly at him, but he was contemplating his words warily.

And then he slowly put down his arms, seeming to have come to a reluctant decision.

"Bring him in," he said gruffly, even though he looked at him like he would rather not let him be anywhere near Sam. Dean hated the way that look clenched around his heart with hurt.

He turned around and strode back over to the car. Sam had already managed to get out from the backseat, leaning heavily against the vehicle, holding on tightly to the edge of the roof, shaking like a miniature earthquake. The blankets were still wrapped around him. He looked panicked.

He picked up the pace when he saw the kid nearly slip off, jogging over to Sam. "Hey. What are you doin'?"

"You didn't t-tell me we were...c-comin' here," Sam managed through his chattering teeth.

"Figured it was pretty obvious since you're uh…" Dean gestured at him vaguely. "What's up?"

Sam tremulously raised his head and frowned at him strangely, in a way Dean couldn't read. It was a look that had grown a little too common ever since Dean got here.

"Nothing." He then glanced over at Bobby, waiting at the doorway.

It occurred to Dean then that the panic wasn't  _because_  of him, but  _for_  him.

Not that it hadn't already been obvious, but whatever had gone down the last day his other self had stayed here had to have been  _shit_.

"Come on," Dean said lightly, gripping his arm and wrapping it around his own shoulders. "Easy. Nice and slow, remember?"

Bobby was staring at them both from the doorway, initially surprised, before his eyes widened with horror and fury when they got close enough for him to make out Sam's harrowing facial wounds and physical state in general. "Balls!"

"Hey… to you too... Bobby," Sam greeted when they reached close enough, snorting a small, nervous smile.

**…**

"Did you hurt him?" Bobby bit out the question after a long, awkward moment of him silently glaring at him in the kitchen, his voice low and brimming with emotion and fury. Dean was too stunned at the blunt question to answer, barely able to even think enough to find one. He  _really_  should have seen it coming. "I asked you a question, you stupid bastard. Did you hurt him for that?"

Bobby had called him cuss words like that plenty of times before, but it was never like  _this_. It was always used as a term of his gruff endearment. Right now though, he looked like he would have been ready to shoot him dead if he wasn't the only one present who could walk down the stairs to tend to Sam.

"No, I… fuck, Bobby." He hated the barest note of tightness in his voice, squeezing out from the ache in his chest and throat. "Of course not."

"You lying son of—"

"I didn't, okay!" Dean yelled, hurt morphing into defensive anger. "I wouldn't ever—"

Bobby's face flashed with confusion for a split second, before he cocked an eyebrow sarcastically. "Oh, so you  _haven't_  been whammin' on that kid for the past couple of months?"

The sharp stab to his heart died down in three seconds, but the dull ache stayed relentlessly. "That wasn't  _me_." The words came out before he could even think about it. No sense of anything holding the words down his throat.

And fuck, it was  _liberating_.

"That wasn't  _me_ , okay?" he repeated. "Bobby, I… it's crazy, I know, but I'm not him."

Bobby jerked back slightly, eyes flicking up and down over his face as if trying to gauge his honesty.

"Then who the  _hell_  are you?"

"I… I am Dean, but I'm not  _your_  Dean. I'm… well, I'm a hell of a lot saner where I come from."

"Assumin' I bought it, what the hell does that even mean?"

"Means something took me out of my world and put me here in his body instead. I don't know what's happenin' with him but… yeah. That's what's going on."

Bobby frowned, staring at him.

Dean sighed. "I… I know it's hard to believe," he added, his voice low. "But I swear on my life that it's true. I'd never lay a finger on Sammy, I  _swear_." He swallowed, shaking his head. "I wouldn't… goddamn it, Bobby, I'd rather die than hurt him!"

The expression on Bobby's face was on the edge of something; not yet ready to fall. "Yeah? How do I know you're not playin'?"

Dean puffed out a breath, throwing his hands up. "Yeah, well, how do I prove that I'm  _not_? He'd know everything I know." Everything that happened before Hell, at least. Either way, he would have to come up with some way to convince Bobby of the truth.. He would know he wasn't a monster, because he trusted Sam's smarts enough to know he would notice, but how did he prove that he wasn't  _that_  monster. He didn't have Sam to back him up here, so Bobby had no reason to take his word for it. "I… I don't know, Bobby. How am I supposed to make you believe me?"

"Fine," Bobby relented. He still hadn't completely bought it, clearly, but Dean got the feeling he was getting there, because the shotgun was lowered and there was still that look on his face, guarded but on the edge of belief, and while there was still that wariness and moderate hostility in his body language, it wasn't that sheer fury and hatred hardening his face. "All that aside for now, I wanna know what the hell happened with that kid. You said hunters got him?"

"Uh, yeah," Dean affirmed. He shoved down the feelings that came with the images of Sam, hurt and thrown to the ground, curled up and trembling. Expressing any sort of anger here seemed like a counterproductive move, felt like it'd be misinterpreted for the wrong reasons and throw him right back to square one with the man. "They found out about him. The demon blood and the apocalypse and stuff. Couple of demons with big mouths, probably."

Bobby nodded. "Hm. And who were these knuckleheads, exactly?"

"You knew two of them," Dean stated. If Bobby noticed the usage of past tense, he didn't point it out. "So did Dad. So did Sam and I." He snorted bitterly. "Tim and Reggie, along with some other goons. Can you believe that? Swear to god, if Dad had seen what they did to Sammy, he would have—"

He stopped when he caught the man's paling face.

"Uh, Bobby?"

"Balls!" Bobby exclaimed angrily. Dean got why the man was pissed as fuck, but the shock mingled with it into his face was what he didn't get. He wasn't  _that_  close to those dickwads. They were less than pals. Acquaintances at best, in fact. So while he'd be somewhat surprised and disappointed on top of the disgust and fury, he wouldn't be looking like  _that_.

"Yeah, I know," Dean tried to humor anyway. "Sick fucks. Wanted to rearrange their faces as soon as I saw em'."

Bobby was barely listening, caught in whatever turmoil was going on inside of him. He lifted his cap, running a hand through his thinning hair.

He sighed. It was then that Dean was able to decrypt the expression on his features as that of compunction and regret.

"I sent those bastards to Sam," he confessed, low and guilty. Dean was slightly taken aback at the revelation, couldn't help but cock an eyebrow in a,  _you're kidding me, right_? Bobby hurled his cap to the ground furiously. "Damn it, I shoulda' known better!"

Dean didn't think he was in much of a position to judge him on what he should have known better. Not like  _he_  didn't abandon Sam and leave him to be fresh meat to those self-righteous dicks.

Bobby exhaled out, closing his eyes to regain composure. When he was reposed enough, he pressed further, "Then what happened? How'd Sam get away?"

"He didn't," Dean replied. "They fucked him up so bad that he could barely move when I got there. The only reason he looks any functional right now is 'cause of Cas' healing mojo."

Bobby's brows scrunched together. "You're tellin' me…  _you_  went to save him?"

Dean hated the disbelief he heard there. He never thought he'd hear it for saying that he rescued his kid brother from a bunch of dickless nutjobs.

"Yeah," Dean responded. "They, uh… they called me over. Told me the location and all 'cause…" He paused, jaw clenched as he exhaled out the anger, shaking his head. "They wanted me to kill Sam. They thought… they thought I was him. So. I was on a deadline, and I went in half-assed and I didn't know what to do except play along to buy us both time and… and hope I somehow found an opening to get us out. Or that Cas got my voicemail on time and… he did. He showed up and… uh. Yeah. Now we're here."

Bobby didn't say anything after that. Dean didn't even know if that was a believable story, no matter how true it was.

But for the longest moment, the old man just looked at him, unfathomable and contemplative. Dean couldn't tell what he was thinking or feeling.

And then the man raised his hands and placed them on the wheels, rolling himself forward towards him. There was still that unreadable expression settled on his face, and Dean had no idea what to expect. Was he coming over to sock him in the face or what?

He didn't expect to be grabbed and pulled in into a strong embrace, Bobby's grip so tight around him that he felt his ribs crushing, his breaths smothered.

And yet, felt  _relief_ , like a weight lifting from his chest and floating away.

"It's really you, boy," Bobby huffed, gruff voice full of awe and incredulity and  _fondness_. Dean's arm came to reciprocate, dropping his hand to Bobby's back in a pat.

He also didn't expect the horrible burn in his eyes, water pricking out before he could even think about stopping it.

His jaw clenched stubbornly, blinking hard against the tears. Fuck, if the man knew he was about to start bawling any minute, he'd never let him live it down.

Maybe it was the absolute warmth and solace in the unexpected gesture that brought it all out, something that he hadn't had for a while now, something he hadn't really realized how much he needed until now, and after all the shit he had been bottling up inside, after all of  _this_ , it was all taking its toll on him and now it was pouring out of him. His heart was hurting too much and his body felt too heavy and tired, like it was all crashing down on him at once. Everything. Everything that was hanging over his head these days. Everything that had happened in these fucked up past three weeks. Everything that had happened the past  _year_.

Every fucking thing washing down on him like the billow of a tide, suffocating him and overwhelming his senses and dragging him away with the water choking his lungs.

Hell. The things he did back there and the things they did to  _him_.

The cracked bond between him and Sam after everything that happened the past year.

The past year.

And yet, how much he fucking missed being back in his own world, where everything was what he now saw as so painfully normal compared to everything here. Even if things were shit back there, they could never even  _compare_  to what it was like here.

How much he missed his Sammy and how badly he wanted to fix things. And how much he missed that he didn't look at him the way he kept looking at him here in this world, like he was just  _waiting_  for Dean to…

Like Dean was a goddamn monster to be afraid of.

The cancer spreading throughout his soul.

The things he had seen, in his dreams, in the supposed future.

The things that had happened in these past three weeks, from the day he woke up in that motel room to his battered and traumatized kid brother with bruises on his own knuckles to the day he stood over him and watched him cry into the ground because he thought he was going to die at his own big brother's hands.

All the times he had to see Sammy hurt. Scared. Broken.

The way he failed here.

"I don't know what to do, Bobby," Dean choked out, hoarse and pained. "This kid breaks my fucking heart, and I…" He couldn't talk anymore without his voice going tight and strangled, his breaths fluctuating and irregular as he fought to grab ahold of himself, so he stopped. He pressed his crumpling lips together, a throttled noise escaping out of him.

"It's gonna be okay, son," Bobby said, rough and comforting. Maybe he would give him shit for it later or maybe he was just glad to see Dean feel something human again, but he just let him try to keep himself together into his shoulder. "It's gonna be okay."

"I-I keep… I keep seeing all these things in my dreams...that he's done," Dean managed to squeeze out between heaving breaths, vision growing blurry and hot. The words were pouring out of him, even though he felt like he could barely talk without flying apart. Something inside of him was being ripped to shreds, had been for a while now, and he wanted it to fucking stop (stop  _hurting_ ). "To my baby brother.  _My_  baby b…" His mouth snapped shut, tightened his quivering lips and sucked in a sharp breath. "God, I have to… to watch him plead and hurt an-and fucking cry in my dreams every night, and the worst fucking thing is that  _I'm_  the one that's doin' it all to him. I'm just so fucking sick an' tired of it all, Bobby. I-I don't want to see my own hands hurt Sammy every night, but it won't fucking  _stop_."

"That ain't you, boy. You just remember that." Bobby's uncharacteristically hushed voice held the barest weight of hidden sorrow. "That ain't the boy I know."

"I need you to find a way to get me outta here." The hoarse words came out as more of a plea than he wanted them to be.

"We'll figure it out." That felt like the anchoring reassurance Dean had needed all this time.

**…**

"Sam know 'bout this?" Bobby asked, handing out a beer. After everything, after seeing the animosity in his eyes for himself, the familiar gesture was a comfort. "That you ain't him?"

Dean took the proffered bottle. "No. Not yet. Haven't been able to talk much about the whole thing to him."

"Why's that?"

"I, uh… I mean, I know we're both shit at being forthcoming about stuff, but I can't be this much of a chickenshit, man. It's like… it's hard to explain. But it's like there's something shoving the words down my throat whenever I've…"

Bobby nodded in understanding. "Whatever's doing this probably wants you to keep quiet about it. 'Least with Sam, anyway."

"Yeah. What I don't get is  _why_."

"You and me both, boy," Bobby agreed.

Dean twisted the bottle cap open with his ring. "I'm gonna try again though. When he's in his right mind for it, I mean."

"Yeah."

They fell into another silence. Dean took a long swig of his drink, probably downed a whole quarter right then, a dull burn crossing down his esophagus and settling heavily into his gut. He withdrew the bottle away, setting it down on the table and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Bobby was watching him, eyebrow lifted, but there was a small, inconspicuous hint of a smile tugging on his lips.

"Something else I gotta tell you," Dean piped up, cutting through the comfortable quiet. This was the thing that he didn't really know if he could ever tell Sam, or at least dodge the conversation for as long as possible. Just until he couldn't.

"Yeah? What's that?"

Dean breathed, staring down at the table. He huffed slightly, trying to gather the words. There was a small, fearful voice in the back of his mind, wondering if Bobby was going to go back to looking at him distrustfully if he told him.

"Something's been happenin' to me," Dean plowed through. He was still trying to find the words, still trying to think of the right way to tell him. "Something bad. Uh… I don't really know  _why_  it's happening, but it is. Probably related to why I'm having those dreams. I…"

"Quit beatin' around the bush and spit it out, ya idjit." The affectionate insult made Dean's mouth twitch briefly into a smile.

"I, uh…" Dean started, paused for a brief moment as his words faded off. His eyes were rooted adamantly down at his fingers, fiddling with the unsticking corner of the bottle label. "I think I'm turning into him," he said, low and hesitant. His gaze then flicked tentatively to descry Bobby's expression. "Whatever it was that… that happened to him, it's happening to me too. The longer I stay here, the worse it gets."

He didn't know what exactly he expected in response. Bobby was staring down at his own bottle contemplatively.

"I won't let it hurt Sammy," Dean swore softly.

"Yeh, I know," Bobby said, sure and convicted. There was a twitch of a rueful half-smile on his face. He gestured at him with his bottle. "'Cause you'll be on the other side again before I let you turn into that too."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! So apparently, I got some time to write after all. Well I...I made time... *sheepish grin* I'm supposed to be doing a lot of stuff that I haven't.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter, lovelies!
> 
> Thank you so much to all the wonderful people that have taken the time and effort to leave some feedback!! You are awesome and your kind, supportive words made my day! Thank you to everyone that left kudos, subscribed and/or bookmarked the story!! Love you all and thank you so, so much once again.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: discussion of self-harm and suicide (briefly)

**October 9th, 2008**

_Dean woke up to his brother's lanky fingers running through the short crop of his hair and to his voice in his ear, encouraging murmurs of, "That's it. Come on, man. Open your eyes."_

_His droopy eyelids dragged open, heavy fatigue and lassitude weighing down on the muscles of his body. He found white ceilings and walls, the scent of antiseptic threading into his senses._

_Sam's face took some time to come into focus, like a camera lens trying to clear the picture on the screen. His brother looked exhausted, black bags under his eyes and scruff of facial hair on his chin and jaws. His clothes were dirty and creased._

_"Hey," Sam said, too soft and quiet in the hospital room, like he was trying not to break something fragile with his voice._

_Dean's mouth was dry and parched, which became obvious to Sam too when he tried to talk and couldn't, a strained scrape of a noise that left an itch in the back of his mouth, contracting his throat muscles into a coughing fit._

_Sam splayed his palm over his chest, patting at it soothingly. "Hang on," he said, upper body twisting away from him. When he faced him again, he was holding a cup of ice chips. He scooped a spoonful and lifted it up to Dean's mouth, and it was a testament as to how shitty he felt that he couldn't be bothered to resist._

_When his throat had enough moisture again to be able to work, he croaked out, "How… long?"_

_"You've been out for over a week," Sam informed, his throat rippling with a swallow. "I, uh… I had to tell them that you were… attacked. It looked…" He trailed off, inhaled and bit his quivering bottom lip. "It looked bad enough, so it didn't take much for them to buy it. I-I mean, they'd have locked you up if they knew. So." Sam's features shifted into this mildly uncertain look on his face, like he wasn't entirely sure whether that wouldn't have been the right thing or not. "Now they want to involve the authorities, so we better make up a cover story. The only thing I told them was that I found you like this."_

_Escaping the hospital in the state Dean was in seemed unlikely, and on top of that, Sam would most likely prefer Dean's current condition to be monitored by medical professionals until they were certain he wouldn't end up with any life-threatening complications._

_Dean nodded. He didn't feel good enough to try and argue. "Okay."_

_Sam snorted, borderline bitter and sarcastic. He nodded and looked away. Dean wasn't exactly sure what kind of response he expected from him._

_The beep of the machines in the silence filtered into his senses. The sound pulsed in short intervals throughout the quiet of the room._

_"I feel calm," Dean then rasped, sudden and low and feeble. He did. In a way he hadn't for a while. "S'… I don' know. It doesn'… I know s'not... gone, but I just… I feel better."_

_"Yeah. That's great to hear," Sam huffed satirically, a mirthless smile thinning his mouth to go with it. There was a snarl of anger twisting his features, controlled emotion mingling into the expression, eyes hardened against it. "Really. I'm so glad you feel better after, you know, carving yourself up so bad that they nearly lost you on the table."_

_Dean didn't know what to say. So he didn't say anything. Sam shook his head in his peripheral vision, puffing out a swift, hard breath, presumably at his lack of a reaction._

_"Damn it, Dean! Are you hearing me? You almost_ died  _again," Sam gritted out. "I almost…" He couldn't get the words out, seemed to almost lose composure, so he stopped. He was breathing hard, in and out and in and out. "I thought I… I was..._ god _, do you even know how fucking terrifying it was to… to find you like that? On the floor, bleeding out everywhere, laughing like a goddamn mani—"_

_Maniac._

_Crazy. Nutjob. Psycho. Those were the words that seemed to define Dean nowadays. Sam never said it out loud or outright, but the way he looked at him sometimes said it all._

_Dean's gaze was fixated ahead on the muted TV playing news on the screen._

_Sam's hazel eyes averted in remorse of his outburst. Dean imagined the contrite expression more than he saw it, the apologetic eyes turning back to bore into his stoic profile._

_"This can't happen again, you understand me?" He didn't sound angry and sarcastic anymore. Desperation and pleading took their places instead. "Promise me you won't let it happen again."_

_Fuck. He didn't think that Dean wouldn't have done it If it didn't feel like the only way then? In that labile haze between awareness and insanity?_

_Sam didn't_ get _it. Not really._

 _He didn't get how it felt, how hazy and twisted his mind got in moments like that, how much sense it had made then. He didn't understand what it was like, having his… this_ thing _that was trapped inside of him, keeping him trapped with it. He didn't know if he could make any promises here that he'd be able to keep, because this darkness inside of him… it worked in ways Dean couldn't understand. Messed up his clouded and scattered mind and impaired his lucidity and reasoning in such a way that lies and bullshit became reality and all the wrong, fucked up things began to feel right._

_Maybe the whole demon blood thing with him was… it was something a bit close. Having something evil inside of him, and how feeding it changed the way he saw things. Maybe Sam did understand some of it, but it was in a whole different way._

_But Sam didn't think he was in the wrong for any of it. Dean knew_ he _was._

 _It was hard to keep together what was on the inside when he had to keep together what was outside too. Sam was fucking him up on the inside with all the shit he'd been pulling. He was making it all_ worse _when all he needed was the time and space and silence to keep his shit together, but god_ damn _it, if hurting himself was the one way to stop himself from doing something he would regret far more, what right did_ Sam _of all people have to take it away from him?_

_He shoved the thoughts away, not wanting to trigger it all back. Dean trapped his bottom lip between his teeth. "Sure. I'll try." It sounded non-commital to his own ears, and apparently to Sam's too._

_"Dean," Sam warned._

_"What d'you wan' me t'say, man?" Dean scoffed, but it was a weak wisp of a breath. "S'not like…_ you've _been helpin'."_

_It was Sam who went silent this time._

_He didn't say another word for the entirety of the time until Dean dozed off._

**…**

**October 10, 2008**

_Dean came back to the living world following Sam's hushed voice, a few feet distant, talking to someone on the phone. There was a low, muffled and tinny noise whenever the other person spoke on the opposite end._

_"No, Ruby…"_

_The familiar heat of betrayal and anger coursed through his veins and chest, the hurt slamming hard into him like a boulder. Something inside of him suddenly lurched with those feelings, violent and jarring, in the dull tranquil that had taken over for the time being, and Dean tried to rip his mind away from it._

_"I'm done," Sam was murmuring. "No, fuck that. I'm_ done _, okay? I'm sorry, but… Ruby, I can't. I gotta look out for my brother first and foremost… I told you what happened. You know why... and that_ can't _happen again. I need to_ be _there to make sure it doesn't."_

_There was a part of Dean that was affronted and annoyed at Sam for letting that bitch in on all of his business._

_He clenched his eyes shut and tried to tear his mind away from the senseless anger again._

_Sam was stopping._

_He was stopping for_ him _._

_That was what mattered._

_"Goodbye, Ruby."_

_Dean kept his breaths even and steady when he heard the rustle of Sam's boots against the floor, turning around to face him, followed by the sound of slow and controlled footsteps nearing towards him. There was a low scrape of a chair against the marble floor, a weighty thud of Sam dropping onto it._

_The next thing he felt was his kid brother's ginormous hand wrapping around his own bandaged one, raising it up tentatively to press to the angles of his face._

_Dean couldn't keep quiet then._

_"You're such... a chick."_

_There was a brief pause, fingers stilling against his._

_Then Sam snorted. "Yeah, whatever, jerk. Go back to sleep."_

_Sam could have easily pointed out the small hint of a smile tugging at Dean's lips, or the way he made no effort to move his hand away._

_But he didn't._

_"B'tch."_

**…**

**October 11th, 2008**

_"Do I_ have _to put this nasty shit in my body? Hell, I'd even take your herbivore food over this tasteless sludge," Dean growled, staring down at the bowl of food with abject disgust and misery._

_Sam chuckled slightly. "You're only allowed bland foods for now. Doctor's orders, man. Can't ignore those."_

_"Uh,_ yes _we can, Mr. Goody-two-shoes."_

 _"Nope._ I'm _not letting you," Sam said, in that exasperating, little-brother-knows-best (was that even a_ thing _?) tone he got when he was being a total mother hen. "So eat your tofu. And chew it slowly and well. Your stomach won't be to handle much stress right now, so the more your food's broken down by the enzymes in your saliva, the better your stomach will be able to digest—"_

_Dean feigned slowly dozing off as Sam rambled, snoring obnoxiously._

_He groggily blinked his eyes open, dramatic and theatrical, to see Sam's face on full bitch face mode. "Huh, sorry. Are you done being boring?"_

_Sam rolled his eyes, shaking his head. "You're an idiot," he scoffed out. The words and the deadpanned tone was contradicted by the play of a smile that he pursed his lips against._

_"'Least I'm not a geek." Dean shrugged, a cocky smirking quirking up one corner of his lips._

_"It's like, basic high school biology, Dean. Even_ you _had to have to know that."_

 _"Yeah, well, there was only one kind of biology that_ I _was interested in." Dean waggled his eyebrows, grinning leerily._

_Sam grimaced in disgust, evoking a bubble of laughter out of Dean. "Uh, right. Okay."_

_God, he missed this. This dumb, pointless banter. It was something they hadn't had in a while now, and it felt good. It felt like things were going to be okay._

_The look on Sam's face, the small smile finally breaking out on his lips against his will, told him that he felt the same._

**…**

**Present**

"Breathe through it, Sammy," Dean murmured, gently rubbing into the knots on his lower back. The muscles beneath his palm spasmed again, and Sam choked in pain. Fuck, that had to be  _hell_  on top of his injuries.

"Need… need the... blood, De'n," Sam rasped out, strained and quivering. "I… I need the…" He made a choking noise again, curling up tighter into himself. His flushed, sweat-sheened face twisted into apology and self-disgust. "S-sorry. Crap. I'm sorry. I didn't mean…"

"I know, bud. It's okay," Dean said. He rubbed his shaking shoulders and arms, trying to stave off the chills a bit. "I got you something to ease the symptoms."

Sam's quaking body jolted against him with another convulse of agony, and he grinded his teeth against the cry that ripped out of him. Dean moved his hands over to continue massaging the tensed muscles on his back. "Wh-what… is it?"

"Stuff they use in rehab for withdrawals," Dean answered. He didn't know if it would work for demon blood detoxification. He hoped it did. If nothing else, it was worth a try. "Clonidine. Helps to reduce muscle aches, anxiety and agitation. You wanna give it a try?"

Sam nodded, but he was shaking so hard that it almost seemed like a part of the tremors.

"Alright. Yeah, that's good, kiddo," Dean encouraged, moving away a strand of hair plastered to his sweaty forehead. He reached over for the glass he had set down on a tray beside Sam's curled knees. "But first, I want you to drink a glass of water, okay? Dehydration's gonna be a bitch, man."

Sam shook his head. "F-feel...sick."

"One glass, alright? If you get sick, it's okay. Bucket's right here. Just try to get it down as much as you can."

Sam looked reluctant, staring miserably at the glass of water.

He then nodded weakly, looked like he was forcing himself to. Dean helped him sit up by the biceps, Sam's palms flat against the surface of the cot as he lifted himself up with his aid. Dean hauled him in to lean against his chest when the kid began to sway without support. Sam flinched violently when another cramp rippled through his body, a pained, throttled gasp tearing out of his throat as he folded over slightly.

"Sh, sh… I got you. S'okay," Dean mumbled, clutching him closely against himself, rubbing into the hard knots in his back to loosen them. He put the glass of water to his lips. "Slowly."

Sam's hand tremulously raised up to take the glass from him. Good to know the kid's independent streak was still at work. Dean got the feeling that some sort of understanding had been solidified in Sam after last night, the understanding that Dean wasn't the same, the man he thought he was. Sam just didn't know whether or not, or how, he should vocalize it. Dean didn't think he would know how to explain yet either, didn't think it'd be the right time because there wasn't a way to convey the revelation in any easy, least overwhelming way.

"Okay." Dean released the glass into his unsteady hold, instead busying himself with trying to warm him up by picking up the folded blanket beside the tray, jerking it out straight and swathing his body in it. Sam started drinking the glass of water, gripping it with both hands to ensure a secure hold. "Slowly," Dean reminded, splaying a hand on the back of his clammy neck. He hugged him close with his other arm, running a hand down his back. "Let me know when you can't handle more, but at least try to get the whole glass down."

**…**

"Sammy, no. Hey. Look at me," Dean said, tapping his face lightly. Sam barely seemed to notice, his glassy eyes stuck on whatever he was seeing beside him.

"I was… goin' to… tell," Sam mumbled, pleading and quiet. "'I was… goin' to… wouldn' lie t'you 'gain, De'n. S-swear."

Dean didn't know what exactly he was talking about, but he had a guess. It was just about the only thing he could think of, even if he hadn't ever been really sure if it was true.

" _That Lucifer's wearing him to the prom_ …"

" _Sweet little Sammy's Satan's one true meatsuit._ "

Sam jerked back like he'd been hit, a violent flinch jolting his already quaking body, and  _nope_ , fuck this, Dean wasn't letting this go on for any longer than it already has. No fucking way.

He gripped Sam's chin and wrenched his face towards his own, hard enough for Sam's gaze to snap in his direction, rolling slightly from the sudden motion before they fixated unsteadily on him.

Sam frowned dazedly, forehead scrunching.

"It's not real, Sam," Dean said firmly. "Whatever you're seeing, whatever I'm saying or doing there, it's not  _me_." Sam's eyes began to drift towards the side again, as if to check, confused and distracted. Dean held his face in place, trying to force him to maintain his attention on him. "No, no. Don't look there. Look at me. Just keep looking at me, okay? I'm the one that's real. Not him. So you focus on  _my_  voice and my face, you hear me?"

Sam blinked. His head twitched slightly sideways again, as if he was hearing something from there again, but ultimately decided to not look away from Dean. "Re'l?"

Dean nodded, brushing his thumb over the dent in his chin. He brushed his other hand down his bicep, willing warmth and comfort and reassurance into the kid. "Yeah, little brother. I'm real. I'm real. And I ain't hurting you, okay? Nobody's hurting you." He lifted his hand up from his face and laid it over his hairline. He leaned in, voice lowering to a murmur, "And if anyone tries to, Sammy? I'll hurt em' too."

**…**

**October 31st, 2008**

_"Can I ask you a bit of a loaded question?" Sam's low voice piped up suddenly from the adjacent bed, shoved up against the cracked and mildewed wall of the motel room, over the loud, crass noise of a speeding bus and panicked, bellowing dialogue. Vaguely, in the back of Dean's mind, he noted that the quiet, hesitant tone of his voice, the slight stumble over the words, sounded like it took him time to build the courage._

_But most of his focus was directed at the action movie playing on the screen, and even more so, by the female lead, Sandra Bullock. Dean hummed distractedly, not exactly in the mood to have any heart-to-heart at this time of night._

_They were two states away from the hospital in Indiana, now in some nameless town somewhere in Louisville since last week and a half. Dean had gotten sick and tired of being bed-ridden there by the second day, and above all, the cops' ceaseless questions then. Being in the comfort of some shitty dump of a motel with no one but his brother was a tremendous relief now._

_"You gonna be straight with me?"_

_"Depends," Dean answered indifferently._

_"_ Dean _," Sam demanded, prissy and annoyed._

_Dean sighed loudly and rolled his eyes, grabbing the remote. He pointed it at the TV and jabbed his thumb down on the mute button before turning to face him. "What?"_

_Sam went silent then. Dean felt somewhat exasperated that the kid had nagged at him to pay attention, but now he was taking his sweet time saying what he wanted to._

_But Sam looked like he didn't really want to vocalize the question on his mind. He didn't seem to want to know the answer. That might have given Dean a pretty good idea of what the topic could be related to._

_"When you, uh…" Sam started, his voice fading. He inhaled in slowly, like he was trying to take in that courage again. He set his jaw with determination, brows furrowing together, and plowed through, even when his voice sounded slightly strained with controlled pain, "Did you want to…"_

_He looked weary and torn about whatever it was that was going through his thick head. Dean_ really _didn't like seeing that look on his face._

_"What?" Dean asked, the timbre of his voice changing into gentle, encouraging, pressing._

_Sam inhaled heavily, averting his gaze. Dean figured out where his thinking was at a second sooner._

_Sam let out the breath and voiced it out as he looked back at him, "Did you want to die? When you did that to yourself?"_

_Some part of Dean didn't want to answer, didn't want this to escalate into something emotionally heavy and chick-flicky. The other part of him couldn't stand letting that hurt and sorrow linger on his kid brother's face, knew that Sam needed the answer from him._

_Apparently, he must have taken too long to respond, because Sam took the silence as an affirmative, judging by the way his eyes grew heavier and slightly red, muscle bunching in his jaw, nodding in that way he did when he got too emotional._

_"I wasn't tryin' to kill myself, Sammy," Dean replied. "Things were just kinda fucked up and hazy and not making a lot of sense and in that moment, I thought…" Talking about it felt like it would come out sounding too absurd now that he was lucid. He didn't think Sam would really understand what he would try to explain. Dean barely understood it himself. "It just made sense at the time."_

_"Made sense?" Sam echoed, raising an incredulous eyebrow, like he couldn't understand how something like that could ever make sense. Dean himself didn't totally get why it did back then, so he couldn't entirely blame the kid for his skepticism._

_"I just...felt outta control," he explained. Tried to. "Like I needed to hurt something. Bad."_

_"So you hurt_ yourself _?" Typical signs of Sam getting riled up again. Dean supposed he really wasn't as okay about it as he'd been pretending to be these past couple of days, had only been locking it away until Dean was better enough to take the shit._

 _"A lot of bad shit makes sense when it happens," Dean said, shrugging nonchalantly, even if he felt anything but about the whole thing. He didn't tell Sam that one of those things was the way it dug its claws into his insides, tried to drive his body into hurting_ him _, burning and pushing and pulling. "I just did what I thought I'd regret less." Wouldn't really regret at all, maybe._

_Somehow Sam realized it anyway. Just from that._

_"It wanted you to hurt me, didn't it?" Sam said, his voice subdued with realization._

_Dean's mind went blank on that, on what to say, wanting to deny it, to reassure Sam that that wasn't true._

_But it was._

_The lack of words, the silence that stretched on too long from his inability to find them, had to be enough of a confirmation._

_"Are we done?" His voice came out sounding weary and weighted. He really didn't want to talk about this anymore._

_He sure as hell didn't want to see the look on Sam's face, didn't want to know what he felt at finding out that the man who was supposed to look out for him and have his back was the one that was daydreaming about—_

_He didn't want to see the hurt on Sam's face._

_Or worse._

_"You won't hurt me," Sam told him softly._

_The comfort and the faith and trust._

_Dean scoffed derisively. He had told himself the same thing, and he_ had _meant it. He was ready to do whatever it took to keep Sam safe from himself, right down to putting a bullet in his head._

_But some days, when his mind and body screamed with the need to hurt, the way it was altering his mind and self, how rapidly it was getting worse, and the way he couldn't tell at times which thoughts were his own thoughts and which thoughts were the thoughts that were being defiled by the monster living inside of him..._

_Some days, he didn't know anymore._

_It seemed to latch on to all the things that had ever gone wrong, to the agony and injustice and fury of what he suffered in Hell._

_And it latched on to the things Sam had been doing, felt all that curdle of fear in his gut, the sharp cramp of hurt converting into his anger, feed into the darkness._

_He felt the dull oncoming burn at these thoughts, disrupting the seemingly falsified and fragile tranquility that had been pervading him since the day he spilled his own blood._

_He reminded himself that Sam stopped._

_He stopped for_ him _._

_"You won't, Dean," Sam insisted when he caught sight of the doubt on his face. "I mean, I don't know what it's like for you. Honestly, I… I can't even imagine what you're going through… but I know you, okay? I know you better than anyone I know. And I know you'll do everything you can to make sure you don't hurt anyone."_

Least of all me _, was unspoken, but Dean knew that was what he meant too, and Sam was looking at him with so much conviction and faith in his words that Dean couldn't help but believe them too._

_Maybe he could. He could fight it long enough for them to win, for them to get it out of him. Dean had been trying so fucking hard to not let it consume him whole, but it had gotten so bad by this point, and it only kept getting worse, and there were days when Dean thought that this would be the day it would take over, the day he wouldn't be able to make it out of the door and somewhere far, far away before he…_

_There were thoughts and urges that invaded his mind and body that made him believe, with even more ferocity, that he belonged back in Hell._

_But Sammy believed in him._

_He believed in him in times and ways that he didn't believe in himself._

_Dean remembered being eighteen and thinking he was too stupid to pass his GED test, that all he had ever been meant to be was a brainless, gun-toting soldier. Barely paid any attention in school because he knew he didn't have a future anyway, so he tried to make sure that Sammy did. His baby brother was a genius and he could be anything he wanted to be, unlike Dean._

_So he spent all that time fucking around and trying to focus on making sure Sam got to finish his homework and assignments on time and learn all his tests (and maybe, even if it would kill him to watch him leave, get out of this shitty, hopeless life of theirs and go to some preppy college, because Sam deserved better and he could make it in all the ways Dean didn't think he himself ever would. Even when he did later, even when it turned out that it shredded Dean apart on the inside when it happened, he was more proud than he could ever put into words of the kid)._

_Dean did pass in the end. He got As and Bs and Cs, adding up to a B overall, somehow (because he studied harder when his kid brother told him that he was the smartest person he knew and he didn't want to let him down), and he remembered the way Sam beamed at him proudly, genuinely amazed, and even though Dean waved it off with feigned exasperation and a joke then, he spent a long time after thinking about that look on Sam's face and the way he hugged him and mumbled into his shoulder, "I'm really proud of you, Dean. You know that, right?"_

_It wasn't the same situation. Furthest thing from something so seemingly mundane and normal now._

_But that need to make sure he deserved Sam's belief and faith in him…_

_That was still there after all these years._

_Dean huffed slightly, a small smile quirking up the side of his lips. It got the message through, because Sam's lips twitched into a reciprocal of it._

_They fell into silence then. Dean fell into his thoughts too, feeling a renewed sense of hope and strength diffusing heatedly in his gut. The images of the movie on the screen mutedly played on, but he wasn't paying it any attention._

_And then, "Hey, Dean?"_

_"Hm?"_

_There was quiet for a moment. When he glanced at Sam, the expression on his face was the one he wore when he was trying to gather the words, trying to say something in a way that didn't trespass on Dean's rule against sentimentality._

_"Losing you…" The thought of it seemed to tighten his features slightly with pain. He swallowed, his throat convulsing visibly. "That'd be worse than anything it could make you do to me… you know? So uh… just. Just promise me you won't let that happen again, okay?"_

_Dean wasn't going to. He didn't want to. If it was down to him hurting Sammy and hurting himself, then he knew what he should be choosing. What he'd rather choose._

_But one look at those damn eyes, and suddenly all he wanted was to make sure Sam never had any reason to look like that._

_"Okay, Sammy. Okay."_

**_…_ **

**December 28th, 2008**

_The better times lasted three months at best._

_Dean woke up one night, fiery-red images of fire and blood still haunting his thoughts, sweating and shaking._

_And Sam wasn't in the other bed, the way he had been in all these past weeks._

_There was a voice, muffled and distant, from outside the door._

_"Yeah. I'll be there," Sam muttered. "Half an hour tops, Ruby. Promise."_

_Dean stared at the beige-painted, cracked ceiling, the motel fan spinning around in blurred revolutions in the faint moonlight, as the muted scuff of footsteps faded away._

_His_ _vision was greying at the corners as the world started to dim again, his mind and heart fighting to detach from himself. The darkness was casting its shadows over them again, and the flames were slowly flooding back again into the hew of emptiness that had hollowed itself inside of him, setting fire to his sanity and soul._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five more dream-flashbacks exploring their past in the AU!World, which should be done by the next chapter, and then we go back to the real world. There is a reason why Sam went back.
> 
> A huge thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who took the time and effor to leave all of their sweet and kind comments! I loved hearing all your thoughts so, so much and it means a lot to know that you're all still enjoying the story. Thank you so much for all your support and encouragement! *hugs* Thank you so much to all those who subscribed, bookmarked and/or left kudos. Thank you so much to all those that are still reading, silently or otherwise. I'm glad that you're liking the story enough to continue reading! :D You're all awesome <3


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: implied/aftermath of physical battering, past torture, dissociation

 

 

December 31st, 2008

_The first time that it happened, it was like waking up underwater._

_The world around him was distorted and dimmed, like he was standing in a low resolution movie. Yet, the searing throb of the tumid bruises on his knuckles and the weight of blood on them, the rapid thuds of his heart pummeling in his chest and up his throat, the festering darkness and burning flames slowly dying down enough to make space for clarity_ — _all of that was sharp and focused in his ringing, screaming mind._

_Dean came back and suddenly he was staring down at his unconscious kid brother, battered and bloodied on the floor._

_His scattered and detached brain was slowly beginning to connect to reality, joining together the pieces of what had happened._ _His surroundings were growing clearer and clearer now, like he was just waking up from a long, deep sleep._

_Except he hadn't been sleeping. He had been awake all this time, had been here but just not all_ there _. Like being possessed, but not really, because it was still his hands, still his thoughts, still his mind making it all make sense, making it justified. He had sat in the audience seat and he had watched himself_ —

 _He had_ —

_There was a sharp, violent twist in his tightened gut, suddenly forcing him to fold over and drop to his weakened knees, on his palms supporting his body, his brittle stomach lurching in his abdomen again and spasming up his throat into a gag._

_And then he was throwing up, messy and hard, onto the ugly motel carpet._ Oh, god _._

Oh god.

_When the little that he had been able to force down his gullet throughout the day was all spattered in front of him on the ground, nothing but bile left to heave out, he found that all the air in his body had left him too, his acid-burnt throat and lungs throttled in a vice-like grip by the horror and mourn and shame of what he had done. His heart was hammering so hard into his sternum it hurt, now no longer from rage, but pure and utter terror of himself, of his hands and body and mind and all that they were capable of, of all the blood and bruises and sorrow laid out in front of him._

_Dean hadn't been sleeping, but he was still caught in a waking nightmare, one where he wasn't the one driving himself, lost in the fog and delusions of his dreams._

_He reached out shaking fingers, placing it against Sam's neck, didn't know how bad he hurt him, didn't know if Sammy needed a hospital, didn't know if he would find any_ —

_Dean felt the throb of his pulse against his fingers and nearly fucking broke from the billow of relief pouring down on him, his head bowing as he rocked forward, trying to breathe, trying to get in the air he needed into his lungs, only slightly loosened after feeling the thrum of life in his brother's neck._

_He had to get Sammy to a bed, get him cleaned and patch up his wounds and check if anything vital wasn't damaged. Fuck, he could only see glimpses of untouched skin underneath all the blood and wounds. He felt his gut jolt dangerously again, felt his chest and throat contract into a violent gag, but there wasn't anything left to dispel._

_Dean's breaths were hard and short and fast, going in and out and in and out of his constricted lungs, as he tried to keep down everything that was rising in him, the panic and horror still crashing into the shores of his body. He slipped an arm beneath his brother's knees and his underarms, lifting Sam's limp, deadweight up with all the physical strength he could muster in his aching arms._

_He stumbled a few feet over to the bed on his knees. His back hunched over with the load dragging his body down, shoulders falling forward with Sam in his arms, some choked, heaving, desperate noise shaken out of his chest as his elbows dropped heavily onto the mattress._

_"I'm sorry," Dean gasped out, leaning over him. He pressed his forehead to Sam's, throbbing hand shakily burying into the side of his matted hair. He lifted his head up again to look down at him, fatigue-bruised eyes roving over his wounded form and trying not to crumble. "Oh god, Sammy..."_

_It was just a fight._

_Just another one of their stupid fights._

_It was a particularly bad one, screaming and shoving at each other and rapidly beginning to escalate into a full-out physical brawl. Sam had said he would stop, so he was_ supposed _to stop, but then he went right back to that black-eyed bitch instead (left him behind and chose her again over him, like he kept doing over and over). And Dean tried to hold it down for a few days, but the monster inside of him, feeding on his betrayed hurt (like infected, black pain festering through his heart) and wildfire anger, couldn't take it, and Sam's power-fueled, overblown ego couldn't take it, and they fought and they hurt each other with words and fists, but it had started off on an equal standing._

 _Fuck, it was just a_ fight _._

_And then it wasn't._

_Dean remembered the exact point when something inside of snapped apart, like a thick rubber cord pulled too taut and too fast, remembered the exact moment all the wirings in his brain got all twisted up and wrong, when the darkness shrouded his vision and his thoughts even when he could see and understand everything that was happening._

_He remembered the exact point Sam stopped fighting back._

_Dean didn't know whether it was out of an inability to or out of choice when he saw how far it was going, how far they were pushing. Things had barely ever gotten that physical, unless it was under the influence of something supernatural and evil; possession, a curse, mind-control. The worst they had ever gotten willingly under extreme circumstances was Dean throwing a punch or two, or Sam shoving him to the ground, and they mostly just let the other have it if they thought they needed it._

_He remembered the exact point when Sam started yelling_ — _pleading_ — _at him to stop. He remembered it not mattering._

_Now that clarity was seeping in and the darkness was loosening its hold, he couldn't understand why it hadn't._

_Dean stood to his feet, dragged them across the carpet as he staggered over slightly to his duffel bag on his feeble knees and overburdened feet, head too light and dizzy from the lack of air and the exhaustion bearing down on his body like his bones were made of lead._

_When Dean found the first aid kit, he returned to Sam's side the same way, like the load on his rawed out chest and muscles was too big for his ankles._

_He unbuttoned Sam's blood-spattered overshirt and threw it into a corner, lifted the undershirt and only let himself a moment's pause at the state of him, something deep inside of him breaking apart at the jarring comprehension drifting into the corners of his mind, knocking into his sternum painfully._

I did this.

_He was the one that was supposed to make sure nobody ever got to lay a hand on his brother._

_And he did this._

_Dean swallowed and plowed through, trying to clear his mind of the fog of the emotions, the burning sorrow and panic and self-loathing and disgust, enough to focus. He ran his hands down Sam's jaws and sides and chest, prodding at his ribs, his abdomen, sides. He cleaned all the blood away with alcohol wipes (and when it ran out, cotton balls drenched in peroxide), stroked his fingers through his floppy hair while he did and touched his face to keep it in place like he would break if he pressed too hard. He stitched up ring-cuts that went too deep and brushed trembling fingers over bruise-circled skin that split on too much impact, trying not to throw up again._

_"_ You won't hurt me."

_Dean clenched his jaw against those words ringing in his head, so full of faith and trust and sincerity. The shame gripped his gut and clenched its fingers around it, and the pain squeezed the breaths out of his lungs again._

_"_ You won't, Dean."

_His breaths rattled and hitched again in that moment, a wisp away from falling apart. He didn't. He wouldn't let himself. He wasn't the one that got hurt (except when Sammy got hurt, so did he. Hurt more than anything anyone could do to him. If there was anything even worse, it was knowing that he was the one who was responsible for it, the one whose bruises on knuckles came from forming the bruises on Sammy's skin)._

_When he was done patching Sam up, he stayed sitting there at his bedside, kneeling on the floor, fingers encircling around his wrist to rest on the pulsepoint._

_He was exhausted to his bones but he couldn't sleep._

_So for the longest time, he sat there and waited._

_Sam woke up hours later, arm stirring beneath Dean's fingers. He shot his head up from where it was pressing into his own arm on the mattress, watching intently as swollen, groggy hazel eyes slid open as much as possible, squirming in discomfort and pain. Sam's unfocused eyes struggled to absorb in his surroundings._

_"Sammy. Hey," Dean whispered softly, brushing a tentative, soothing hand over his forehead (felt like he wouldn't ever get to touch him again, not after what he did, didn't deserve to). Sam's gaze fell a little sideways, trying to follow his voice. "That's it, kiddo. Come back to me."_

_He swallowed down the hard ripple of nausea, from his gut to throat, at the way Sam leaned a little into his touch. He didn't remember yet. He didn't know why he was hurting and who..._

_Dean schooled his face against the way it began to contort._

_"I won't let it happen again, Sammy," he swore breathlessly through a throat three sizes too small, to himself and to Sammy, his voice coming out quiet and broken and strained. He'd do better. He had to. "It won't happen again."_

_He had to make sure he wouldn't let it take over him again._

**…**

February 2nd, 2009

_It did happen again, no matter what he did._

_It happened a second time, even when he tried to do everything he could to stay away from anything that could make him lose his mind again._

_There were seals being broken left and right. Samhain was summoned in early December (before Sam went back to his old ways again, back to that sly, manipulative bitch). They got him, but not without Sam being forced to use his powers in self-defense. Dean didn't like it, but considering the alternative, he didn't know if he could fault him for that. Either way, that was one more broken lock on Satan's cage. He hunted, killed things and sometimes overkilled them, but the satiation of its blood and broken body lasted shortly at best._

_The monster inside of him didn't want a death count. It wanted slow, brutal suffering._

_He still tried to lose himself into the job and ignore everything else so that he could focus on keeping his shit together, had been trying not to_ care _about what Sam was doing because maybe then, it wouldn't…_

_Maybe then it wouldn't happen again._

_If there was no red-hot, fiery rage or sick, black pain to twist itself into him, then there wasn't anything there to twist up into the darkness. He just had to detach himself, had to keep going and not_ think _._

_Right?_

_Except it wasn't that easy, because no matter what he did or didn't do, it was always just there now, like a part of him that had always just_ been _, always just lurking and hiding and waiting in the depths of his mind._

_They never talk about what had happened, but Dean could tell Sammy was still angry and hurting. He saw it in his grim, set mouth and his cold, wounded gaze nowadays, the way he wouldn't look at him anymore or talk to him the way he used to. They sat wordlessly in the car, with music blaring on full volume, and yet, the silence between them still suffocating and tense._

It's okay, _Sam had said, hoarse and rough from the fingerprint bruises circling around his throat, when he woke up and finally remembered, but his head had turned away to hide the ache and burn of betrayal and humiliation that Dean had already caught in his brittle (hardened and so close to breaking apart if they loosened any) eyes. He knew it hadn't really been Dean, but he also couldn't get past the fact that it_ was _. Dean didn't blame him. Sam had then said,_ let's just. Let's just forget about it.  _Like it was that easy. Like either of them ever could. Like Dean could._

_It only seemed to have made Sam even more determined to keep doing whatever he was doing._

_Only pushed him away even further._

_They stood within three feet of each other, but it was like they were still a thousand miles apart._

_Sam was ruining himself,_ destroying _himself in his craving for vengeance, for the sight of Lilith's head on a platter. Heaven's_  w _arning threats against his brother were constantly hanging over Dean's head, and Dean was red-raw and burning inside from the idea that he couldn't matter more to Sam than this (than his lust for power and poison, for that fucked up, demonic skank)._

_"You know what, Dean? Just go right back to—" Sam had almost once said in another one of their fights. He didn't say it all, halted to a wide-eyed, shocked stop before he could at the too low blow he was about to throw, but Dean knew what he almost said. That was what they did nowadays; find all the words they could hurt the other with the worst, dragged away in the tide of their electric-high emotions that they both kept trying to repress and control but somehow never could, because one of them lost one way or another anyway, and the other followed inevitably. There wasn't much space for patience and self-restraint when one was a power-addicted, demon blood junkie and the other was a psychotic and monstrous Hell survivor that specialized in torture._

_Either way, it wasn't as if Dean didn't deserve those words wholly, because Dean's foot had gone in his own mouth again and his fist had gone flying out of his control once, twice, driven by something violent and dark and writhing inside of him, marionetting his body around. And_ _he knew that he deserved them once he returned to his senses, but he didn't think that then. He had gripped onto the fragment of clarity that had rattled in him slightly, ripped himself away from it all before it could consume him whole again (took every fucking fibre of being, every bit of willpower he possessed to) and walked out the door. He didn't come back until hours later at nighttime, no missed calls from Sam throughout. He hadn't expected any, had_ hoped _Sam wouldn't send any, in fact. When he got to the motel though, Sam was awake and waiting anyway._

_He still saw fiery-red images of blood and fire and pain underneath his eyelids, in his sleep and in his waking nightmares, still felt something crawl up his spine and claw at his gut when he saw human blood and body organs of monsters that looked too human and blades and bloodied blades (made harder when it was part of the job, but he was learning. He had to, even if he preferred holding guns more now). The trauma of Hell still haunted his mind day and night, when he wasn't working or trying to drown himself into the bottom of a bottle or into everything that could keep him sheltered from those thoughts and images, and the darkness constantly lurked at the edges of his awareness. Sam didn't bother to try to talk to him about it anymore, not when all Dean did was get pissed or annoyed, and that was something that Sam would justifably want to tread carefully around nowadays, after what had happened the last time he didn't._

_Dean was finding it hard to let it all go._

_So they fought again, in another shitty motel room in the middle of fuckwhere. Dean tried not to. He had been trying to keep his mouth shut all this time and to keep going and pretend his brother didn't go out at night and come back smelling like rotten-egg sulfur and copper and sex, but one dumb, bitter, caustic comment slipped out before he could shove it down, couldn't blame that one on anything but himself._

_Everything that followed after made him wish he had never said anything._

_Sam gave one right back. And then it built, one after the other, both of them growing angrier and louder until they were using every weakness and insecurity they knew of the other to rub on those chaffed nerves like salt and lemon._

_And then Dean was gone again, gone right out of his mind and body, and yet, still there to watch it all happen right in front of his eyes._

_He knew then that he could make all the promises he could never keep, but it was going to happen a third time too. It was going to happen again if he didn't just get the_ fuck _away, because that was the nature of this darkness. When it took over, Dean wasn't the one driving the wheel, even if he was under the illusion of it._

 _Dean wasn't sure why he ever thought he could do it_ — _fight this and go back to being himself and somehow live a life in this world again._

_So now he was here, standing at the door in the dark of the night, the strap of his duffel bag hanging over his shoulder._

_Sam's sleep-gruff voice saying, "So you're leaving now, is that it?"_

_Dean couldn't see much of a way out of this._

_He didn't say anything, the way they had been doing a lot for the past three weeks. Always either quiet or something related to work or something with the intent to hurt. It seemed best to leave on a note of silence, especially after all the fighting, all the vicious and disparaging words thrown around._

_He reached for the doorknob. The rustle of sheets followed, Sam slowly untangling himself out of them. Unsteady pad of feet, limping closer and closer. Pause, and then a sigh, a little weary and a little like he'd rather not deal with more of Dean's over-exceeding load of shit._

_"Look, let's talk about this, okay?"_

_As far as Dean knew, there wasn't much to talk about. He didn't know why Sam was even bothering to try and make him stay._

_"Is this about, uh… you know." There was a trailed off pause. There wasn't any easy way to explain something like that, something like your big brother who was supposed to have your back going fucking rabid and_ — _"Because that wasn't you. I know that, and so do you."_

 _"Doesn't matter," Dean said. It didn't matter whether or not he had a choice in the matter, whether it was within his control. He would always have that feeling, like he could have done more, could have been better, could have done something to stop it from consuming him. He should have done something, done_ better _._

 _"It does," Sam said. "So you don't have to do this. Because if we're going to fix you, then I need you here_ with _me, alright?"_

I can't be fixed. Been past the point of saving ever since I broke and picked up that blade in Hell. _Dean didn't say that, though. He said, "I'll figure that out on my own. 'Til then, I think it's best we stay away from each other."_

_Sam heaved a heavy, frustrated breath. Dean didn't look at him, but he knew he was running his hand through his hair messily the way he did when he was trying not to snap._

_"Right. So you leave now, and then what? I wake up one day and get a call that you-you fucking carved yourself up in some dingy motel bathroom again, and that you're_ dead _, and that I need to come over to the morgue to identify your body, Dean?"_

Maybe it would be better that way. _He didn't say that either._

 _"I'm_ not _doing that, okay?" Sam said, low and firm with conviction, a ripple of stale grief tightening around the words slightly. "Not again."_

 _Dean spun, a little too fast, to face him and didn't miss the way Sam stumbled back a step guardedly, warily. The sight of it weighed heavily on his sore, beaten heart, and all the conviction he had slid off his body like water. "'Long as you keep doing what you're doing, and as long I have this_ —this thing _in me, Sam," he said, his voice coming out more weary than it was supposed to. "It's going to keep happening. Me hurting you. And_  I  _can't keep doing that."_

_It was Sam who went silent this time._

_The nauseating guilt that had been eating his insides away these past weeks, that had been filling his gut in place of hunger… Dean could barely keep anything down anymore. He hadn't been able to sleep through a fucking night in months, and his eyes felt sunken in and heavy as he watched Sam glance down at his own feet, struggling for words._

_Dean turned back to the door, hand raising to grip the doorknob. "It won't stop. And I know you won't either."_

_"Don't do this. Please," Sam said quietly, pleading, borderline begging. Dean placed all the stones over his already weighed down chest and rotated the doorknob anyway, opening it the first few inches. "Dean, I need you to stay."_

_"You don't."_

_"I do."_

_"You_ think _you do, and I don't even know how you could after…" Dean trailed off. He bowed his head a little, mouth twisting._

_He pulled the door open even more and began to walk out, out of the motel room and out of his brother's life, just until this was all somehow over and gone, or just until forever._

_He had one foot out the door, two steps forward and towards never coming back, towards freedom and assurance that Sam would be safe from him. Free of him, of his dirtied and dark presence._

_And then Sam_   _blurted out, his voice urgent and louder in some last desperate attempt, "She can fix you."_

_And Dean stilled._

_"Lilith," Sam continued, knowing he had Dean's attention. "Ruby told me she could. She has the power for it. So before I kill her, I can...I-I can force her to fix you. And I can't be strong enough to get her without Ruby, so… so I went back to her."_

_Dean's eyes shifted heavenward, shaking his head. He bit his lip, ran one hand down his face tiredly._

_"God, you_ really _can't see it, can you?" He turned around, looking at Sam. "What she's doing?"_

 _"Just because you don't trust her doesn't mean she's_ —"

_"She's using me against you! She's telling you everything you want to hear so that she can keep you right under her thumb! Why don't you see that?"_

_Why don't you see_ me _?_

_What it's doing to me?_

_"Dean, there is_ nothing _else," Sam pleaded, low and willing Dean to understand, to see things his way. "_ Nothing _. I've looked everywhere, done everything I could think of, contacted anyone that could help, tried to get something out of demons. And I_ still _haven't gotten anywhere. There is_ nothing _else, man. So if this is all we have, then why don't you wanna take it?"_

_Dean scoffed, shaking his head as he looked away._

_And then, softly, tentatively, "I'm doing this for you."_

_There was silence, Dean's eyes rooted somewhere off to the side, mindlessly stuck on a spot. The beast was beginning to awaken again, always lurking, always ready to come to the forefront, but in the muddle of emotions mingling together, worldly and otherworldly, he could no longer tell if his next words, his thoughts, weren't all his. "Yeah. Yeah, you keep saying that," Dean huffed out, derisive and flat. "But are you? Because I'm beginning to think this is more about you needing an excuse."_

_"An excuse for what?" The guarded look on Sam's face told him he knew what he was going to hear wasn't going to feel good. The truth did hurt like a bitch._

_Dean looked him right in the eye then and fired the gun right into his heart. "To keep feeding that vile junkie freak in you."_

_Sam's face dropped into stoic, even as the emotion that flared in his eyes was partly fury, wildfire, and partly like he had been kicked repeatedly in the chest._

_Dean stepped forward, closer to him. "Last time, Sam," he said. "You're on a slippery slope. And when you'll fall, and you_ will _fall... you'll fall hard. But I'm not gonna be around to watch it happen. Not unless you're done, and I mean for real this time."_

_Sam's jaw clenched, glancing away. He had never liked ultimatums, the emotional manipulation of it. Dean should have known it would only make him push back._

_"Right. And I'm supposed to be taking advice from you now?" Sam shifted his narrowed gaze back to him then, tilting his head slightly in a challenging manner. "Because you're barely in your right mind half the time, Dean."_

_The words ripped the monster into wakefulness, ripped its claws right into him._

_"You've got my face as proof for that." The words were accompanied with a twist of a tight, satirical smile._

_The claws sunk deeper, for a split second, this time into his heart, and then tore out of him, infected, throbbing poison trailing through his venules._

_Dean hauled open the door and didn't look back._

**...**

_"This is not the path we want you to take."_

_Dean startled violently, nearly swerving the car into a tree, at the gravelly voice piping up from the passenger seat, cutting abruptly through his misery-soaked silence that had been stretching on for two hours. He pulled the car over to the side instead to get his speeding heart rate under control._

_"Why do you_ fucking _do that?" Dean gritted out, gripping the steering wheel tightly. His knuckles whitened around the swell of the bruises (the reminder of what he had done and how he had failed and how much he had fucked up with the kid he loved most)._

_"Heaven demands that you keep watch over your brother," Cas stated. "Your absence in his life can have unfavorable consequences."_

_"Yeah. Well. Not like my presence is doing him a whole lot of good these days either, so…"_

_"You are responsible for keeping Sam under control."_

_"Yeah, well, I can't do it, okay? He doesn't give a rat's ass about what I say." The world was on the verge of ending. The man upstairs was expecting_ him _of all fucking people to save the world. He was becoming a monster, becoming sick and fucked in the head enough to hurt the kid brother he was supposed to keep safe from everything else in the world, all the while said kid brother was being driven right into the arms of that demon skank because Dean couldn't fucking_ do _anything right, because Sam had began to see Dean as someone weak and broken and insane so much so that he cared more about what some black-eyed bitch had to say than his own flesh and blood brother._

_"I've tried," he said, trying to focus back on the conversation. "I've tried to make him see sense. He won't listen to me." Then again, maybe he never gave him much of a reason to, anyway._

_Everything felt like too much, like he just needed one more thing to shatter to pieces and lose himself under it all, on top of the pile of shit weighing down on his shoulders and on a brittle mind one thread away from snapping apart._

_"Then try_ harder _." Cas' voice grew slightly louder with an irate urgency._

 _Dean shook his head. "I can't stay with him, okay? Whatever I do, I'll only end up making it worse_ —"

 _The monster breathed whispers that,_ maybe if Sam stopped acting like the ungrateful piece of shit he was, I wouldn't be forced to—

_Dean clenched his teeth, trying to push the flood of thoughts washing down against his doors away._

_"You are not understanding me, Dean Winchester. This is an act of mercy, that we allow you the chance to save your brother, but if you cannot do it, then we_ will _smite him and we_ will _throw him down to the deepest pits of Hell where he belongs."_

_Dean couldn't move for a while, couldn't think or say or do anything except stare at the angel in some subdued, paralyzed horror and fury._

_When he managed to reign in the anger with a slow inhale, the terror that the threat to his brother had bubbled up in him, he tried to explain, "Cas. Look, man. I… there's something inside of me. This-this_ thing _that I brought back from Hell…"_

_Cas nodded once, slow and careful, gazing intensely at Dean in a way that made him want to look away, but he held ground. "I am aware. I have sensed this darkness in your soul, ever since the day I embraced you and flew you out of perdition."_

_Dean paused, not sure of what to make of the fact that the darkness was so palpable to the angel, or of his somewhat weirdly saccharine, even if unintentionally so, description of the events. He bobbed his head once in an uncomfortable nod. "Yeah. So, uh…" Dean said. The muscle in his jaw ticked, shrugging. He swallowed slightly. "I can't keep hurting Sammy. I don't want to hurt him. And, you know, if it ever goes too far one day… if I stay with him and hurt him too bad and he…" The thought, that he struggled to put into words, seized his chest, closing up his throat and cutting off his airways._

_Cas went silent momentarily. The way he shifted his blue gaze ahead, fixated at nothing through the windshield, gave Dean the sense that it wasn't exactly out of a lack of words. Rather, it was of whether or not Dean would like them or not._

_"In the words of... Uriel, although more gracefully put," Cas began, the mildly slow, stiff tone of his monotonous voice clearly suggesting that what he would say next wouldn't be taken well, but deciding firmly that it must be said. He was by no means hesitant. "Perhaps this darkness is exactly what you need to stop your brother from going down his damned and wicked path."_

_The horror and disgust and white-hot wrath (one that felt normal, more himself, more grounded in this world) exploded in Dean's head and chest like a bomb going off, wide eyes snapped abruptly to stare at Cas._

_"What'd you say?"_

_"If Sam refuses to listen to reason, then it is probable that more extreme measures are in order to prevent a far more catastrophic outcome. Your world is already in danger with Lucifer's rise on the horizon. We do not want to deal with your abominable brother as another possible threat in the future. So I am warning you again. Stop him, in whatever way that may be, or we will."_

_"Go fuck yourself," Dean hissed seethingly. "And tell your dickless, harp-toting pals up there to shove it where_ —"

_And then Cas was gone, cutting Dean's tirade off, with only a flutter of wings disturbing the air._

_Dean gripped the wheel tightly, breathing hard, teeth clenched until it hurt._

_His phone vibrated in his jeans' pocket. When he fumbled it out in his trembling fury and fear, it was Sam's name on the screen. One voicemail. He released an exhale to calm himself and opened the message. Sam's tinny voice, a quiver of controlled panic in it, came through._

_"Dean, I… look, I'm sorry, okay? We both… I know I said a lot of stupid shit. Just_ — _just_   _come back, man. We can fix this."_

_They couldn't fix anything. Not Dean. Not them. Nothing._

_Not after everything._

_The only reason Sam swallowed his pride and called him back was because he was too afraid of Dean being out there alone, insane and fucked up, hurting himself. Hurting others._

_But either way, Dean didn't have a fucking say in this anymore._

_Fuck heaven and hell and every_ fucking _thing in between._

_For the longest time, he sat there in his car and thought about how one day, this heinous suggestion of Uriel's wouldn't make him feel the way he was feeling now, but would rather make all the sense in the world._

_And he would no longer be himself enough to know that it was that darkness whispering inside of him._

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: implied physical battering, past torture, suicidal ideation and suicide attempt

 

Present

Sam looked better after a shower, less sickly and more refreshed, without the sheen of dried sweat, grime and oil clinging to his skin. There were still remnants of his fatigue and frailty from all the physical toll he had been put through lately, due to which his shoulders slouched over and his baggy eyes were still sunken in, shadows encircling around them. His gait was slow and unsteady and he still favored his ribs, but other than that, he seemed to be doing okay, especially when Cas came in for a visit in between and gave him another dose of angelic healing.

The last couple of days have been shitty. As with the prior time that he had been forced to stand by and watch Sam's brutal detox, there had been the constant lingering terror that Sam might not be able to come out on top this time. Then again, this wasn't as agonizing and grave, so Dean was also more hopeful this time around. He had tried however he could to ease his brother's suffering and malaise, whether that was in the form of massaging and rubbing out his knotted, seized muscles, forcing down water and soup with salt crackers into him, warming him up with his own hands and body, soothing away his hallucinatory confusion with his voice and touch or pinning him down in his convulsions throwing him about.

Sam was now taking his laptop out of his duffel and sitting down at the desk that was shoved into the wall of Bobby's guest room, scooting his chair forward.

And what in the  _fuck_  was the moron thinking? Wasn't he screaming feverishly in pain just yesterday from the anguish of his withdrawal cramps (and giving Dean a constant fucking heartattack while he was at it)?

Dean strode over and shut the whole thing down in one second, slamming the screen lid down. Sam's mouth snapped open in a balk, a protest poised on his lips, before he halted. He shook his head in puzzlement, his furrowed eyes droopy and darkened from exhaustion as he stared at him.

"I just… I was going to look at…" Sam had been obsessive ever since Lucifer got out of his bars, not just here but back in his own world too, staying up late at nights researching for possible solutions and ideas by reading on Archangels and the concept of, or any related to, armageddon, searching through museums or private owners of artefacts that were rumored to have special powers and might be of help in their battle against the devil. If it wasn't that, he was counting down the lives and towns that were being taken away instead.

"You're not doing this now, dude. Go to bed, get some shuteye. The apocalypse will still be here tomorrow."

Sam looked conflicted, warring between either wanting to sleep or not wanting to disobey and wanting to continue with his obsessive need to keep track of the apocalyptic effects on the world.

"Come on," Dean said. He reached for him. Sam's eyes tracked the movement silently, that unfathomable emotion coloring his gaze once more.

He looked lost again, his expression the emotional incarnation of having no idea where in the fuck he was.

There was silence stretching on for nearly a quarter of a moment.

And then he did ask. After everything else, it was strange to find that the simplest thing was what Sam had enough of.

"What's going on?" It was a small, quiet whisper, so quiet that Dean almost didn't understand, and just as lost as the look in his eyes.

Not for the first time, Dean realized the drastic difference between him and who he was in his own world. He hadn't heard Sammy sound like that, not even anything close to it, for two decades.

"I-I mean. Why are you…" Sam trailed off, blinking. He looked down at his feet then, like he shouldn't be mentioning the big elephant, shouldn't be reminding Dean that this wasn't who he was supposed to be. Maybe it had been clear that Dean wasn't  _him_ , but until he got the clear confirmation of it, Sam couldn't be sure, could he? "You're different. You're not... you would have given up by now," he was mumbling. He shook his head, brows scrunching together, and Dean wasn't sure if he was talking to him or himself. "I just… I can't figure it out. What happened. I keep thinking about it and… and nothing makes  _sense_."

Dean supposed it was about time.

It was about time he stopped backing down against whatever the hell didn't let the words come out of him. He felt the thrum of them in his chest, the need to get them past his throat and out into the air.

He bit his lip and ran a hand down his mouth, moving over closer until he was half-leaning, half-sitting against the edge of the desk. He was gathering words in his head, trying to figure out how to say what he wanted.

"How do I say this?" he murmured, one hand raising and scratching the back of his scalp. He huffed nervously, shaking his head.

Sam was watching him, waiting. Dean didn't know what he would think, how he would react to the truth. It seemed bizarre to even think about, even for their standards. Body-swapping from different worlds? Would Sam even believe that? Would he think it was just another game?

Would Dean even be able to  _say_  anything?

"There's a world out there, Sammy," was how the words came, gently pulled from his chest and throat like unraveling threads, and Dean was finally,  _finally_  going to be free of the truth that had been pressing itself up inside of him. "There's a world out there where… you and me, we're… you know. Things are fucked up between us. I'm pissed and you're sorry, but I'm not fucked up in the head and I don't hurt you. You don't look at me like I'm a monster cornering you and you got nothing to fight with, and I didn't fail. Not like this. More than anything, you still believe, at least I hope you do, that." He swallowed, shrugged slightly. "I would rather die than let anyone touch you like that and get away with it, let alone do it myself."

For a moment, Sam's face was unreadable, and then it was twitching onto the edge of an emotion, an uncertain puzzlement of knowing where it was going, yet not knowing if he was understanding it right. There was something else there too, something that was muted down and heavy in the pinch of his gaze.

"There's a world out there where I love my baby brother to bits," Dean said softly, deliberately missing whatever expression formed on Sam's face at that (thought it might tear him up if he saw it). He looked down at his hands, feeling raw and exposed at the words he could never easily admit to, but that felt like a necessity now in a place like this. "That's the world I'm from. I, uh… I don't know what happened. Why it happened or...or who did it. I just woke up here one day and... " He shrugged, snorting a rueful smile. "well. Everything's been shit ever since."

Sam didn't say anything for a long moment. Dean didn't know if it was skepticism or contemplation, if he just didn't know whether he should convey his incredulity or if he was merely processing the revelation.

Dean already had the words tipping his tongue,  _I know it sounds crazy. You don't have to believe me_  (but he needed him to, needed him to feel  _safe_  around him again, god, did he want him to)  _but I swear it's true, man_ —

A thoughtless, soft (so soft that Dean almost missed it if everything else wasn't so quiet) murmur of, "Sounds like a great world." It sounded like he didn't mean to say it out loud, his gaze absent and distant somewhere over Dean's shoulder as a barest flicker of a sad smile touched his lips, accompanied with a wisp of a huff, and the subdued longing there, the  _craving_  of whatever it was he craved from Dean that he couldn't give here, punched the air out of his lungs.

The smile fell off slowly as he came back to himself, his expression sobering as his gaze came back to Dean too. "I, uh. I believe you," he said. Dean's eyebrows raised to his hairline. "I do."

Dean couldn't quite wrap his head around how easy it was, how well it went. Sam had no reason to trust him and take his word for it, but he did, and he did it without a thought even, and he didn't know what to think of that, didn't know if he deserved to feel warm and soft inside about it, but he did. He leaned back slightly with a slow nod, mouth jutted out in a pleasantly surprised expression.  _Huh_. "Just like that, huh?"

Sam huffed a slight smile. "Just like that." His shoulders twitched upward in a shrug. "I mean, yeah, i-it  _is_  crazy. But. I don't know. I guess it makes more sense than anything  _I've_  been thinking, so uh…"

His voice went a little quiet towards the end, and they both collapsed into a quiet for a while.

"I'll help you," Sam then cut through, eyes darting down to his thumb tracing a jagged scar on his palm. His jaws shifted slightly with a small bob of his throat. "Help you get back to where you're from, I mean."

Dean smiled, couldn't help reaching out and ruffling his hair. "Yeah. I know you will, kiddo."

Sam's eyes lifted up at the decades old gesture, tired eyes crinkling into a tentative, slight smile that was still more open and liberated than any expression Dean had seen so far on his face. He didn't draw back from it, maybe even inclined into it slightly, and that was fucking progress and the change felt so good that Dean felt like he was floating.

The look on Sam's face then was a blend of worn joy, his small smile growing into a soft grin, and the restrained yearning still muted and heavy there in his eyes,  _need_  (for comfort? For kindness and affection? For  _Dean_?), and it wrenched into his gut like a knife.

"Sammy, come here," Dean murmured, hand cupping around the base of his neck and pulling him in. Sam came along, hesitating for the briefest moment, a stilling resistance that almost made Dean stop right there, but then his muscles became pliant and he was moving with Dean's tugging, and then he was burying his face into Dean's chest. Dean wrapped one arm around him, the hand of the other sliding into the back of his hair. Sam didn't reciprocate the hug right away.

But then his arms did raise up, initially stiff and hesitant, as they both encircled around his waist, before his grip grew firm. And then strong. And then it was something that bordered on desperate, like the only thing that might hold him together. Dean pressed his mouth into his hair, his fingers pressing him closer by the head and back.

They stayed like that for a time, Dean leaning against the edge of the desk, the grasp around his ribs making it difficult to breathe (and yet, somehow, freeing the clasp around his lungs in a way it hadn't been before), but he hadn't known how much he really needed this until he was getting it, to keep his brother close like this, with Sammy  _holding him back without fear,_  and he wasn't ready to let go yet.

He didn't make a sound, but Dean could feel him shaking slightly in his hold.

He bit his lower lip, carded his fingers over his hair and held back the burn in his own eyes and held on tighter, thought about saying all the things he hadn't been able to say before, but couldn't get past the lump in his throat, rooting the words down his throat.

_I'm sorry for what happened here, for the way he came back._

_I'm sorry for all the times he hurt you._

_I'm sorry for all the times he made you cry._

_I'm sorry he couldn't fight hard enough to keep you safe from himself._

_I'm sorry for the way I failed here._

…

April 15th, 2009

_For the longest time, Dean sat hunched over on his aching knees, gravel in the dirt cutting into his skin through the jeans. He eyed the gun his trembling hand was white-knuckled around the hilt of, his mind lost and racing through nothing and everything, thinking but not aware of himself thinking._

_It was never going to stop. Dean understood that now, better than he ever had._

_It wasn't ever going to go away._

_Not the bruises and Sammy's blood on his fists, not the boulders that were his lungs and heart these days, not the memories of Hell and the things he did, the impurity of his brutal, sickening thoughts and urges that were taking his hunger every day and his sleep every night, leaving his gut heavy and knotted and sinking his eyes into their sockets._

_Not the monster that had made its home in him, that he was becoming. This world wasn't the place for it._

_And now all he had was this. Now all he could do was take it back to its real home, where it was created and where it belonged, in the Pit. Where Dean belonged._

_He never should have come back._

_He never should have been saved._

_He knew that then and he knew it now._

You're my little string puppet. My most brilliant student. My beautiful masterpiece, _Alistair's nasal voice echoed in his head, the shadow touch of his hand on his face, affectionate then and nauseating now._ Everything I've taught you will live on inside of you forever now, my boy _._

You have a natural affinity for causing pain and suffering, Dean-o.

_The way Sammy looked at him today, after he…_

_After it happened again._

_Not a face hard and taut, a mix of seething anger and powerless humiliation and hurt._

_But just hurt._

_Tears in his swollen eyes and on his purpling cheeks. That was the first fucking time out of the five times Dean lost it and went berserk that he looked so broken and tired like that; still dazed and watery eyes slowly blinking from being on the verge of unconsciousness and silently watching Dean come back from his loss of mind and control._

_He picked his kid brother off the ground, again, put him on a bed and cleaned away all the blood he spilled, all the horrible sorrow and pain he caused. That seemed to be all he knew to do after it happened, all he could think of doing for his pathetic excuse of a penance. Nothing he could do to make up for it all would ever be enough._

_So Dean swore to himself then that he wouldn't ever let Sammy feel that way again._

_He knew he'd been promising a lot of things that he hadn't been able to do._

_He had promised himself, promised Sammy, every single time that it would be the last time, that he wouldn't ever let himself, let_ it _, hurt his brother again._

 _But it always_ fucking _happened anyway_ _._

_This time, though… this time, he knew he would keep his promise._

_His best redemption and penance was to get himself out of the picture entirely._

_Dean placed his palm flat to the ground, curled fingers around the gun stinging with slicing gravel where they were pressed into the jagged stones, one knee raising upward from under him, and pushed himself onto legs, bones battered and heavy with the weight of his body, onto feet that seemed a breath away from falling through ground._

_Dean looked down at the gun for a moment._

_Who would have thought this was the way he would go down?_

_He lifted the gun and pressed the front under his chin._

_One bullet through the brain, and it'd be over. He would be back in the Pit and he would never hurt anyone, never hurt Sammy ever again. And maybe the angels would come after his brother, but Dean was trying to trust that Sam would figure out a way to hold his own._

_With or without his powers._

_That wouldn't be his concern anymore. Whatever happened, whatever Sam would do after he was gone, whatever Sam would become, it wouldn't matter to a dead man. The knowledge of it all, the thoughts, the hurt and anger and terror; it wouldn't settle into the space between his ribs, like something big and solid and tight, the rage it became burning like melting metals in his chest, wouldn't curl and spasm into something hungry and dark and writhing inside of him. It was better that way._

_It was better than what_ was _happening._

Promise me you won't let it happen again, _Sam's desperate, pained voice piped into his head, sitting beside his hospital bed after Dean carved up his own body. Losing you… that'd be worse than whatever it could make you do to me. So just, uh. Just promise me you won't let that happen again._

Spoke a little too soon there, Sammy, _Dean snorted mirthlessly._ You're probably wishing I was dead now.

_Images of Sam finding his dead body here threaded through his mind, blood and brain matter everywhere. Sam's face, crumpled and panicked and flushed as his hands frantically tried to wrap all the bleeding lacerations on his body on a bathroom floor._

_It didn't matter. It didn't matter._

_It didn't matter when he thought about standing over Sam's corpse one day instead, his baby brother's blood covering his hands._

_If, somehow, Sam did mourn for him after, his head would clear soon enough, and he would realize the liberation and joy that came with not having to worry about when Dean would lose his fucking mind again and become rabid and psychotic._

_Dean pressed the gun even more firmly into the soft space of his chin, felt his tongue tighten and his airways restrict slightly. He closed his eyes, his breaths coming out short and fast and hard, trying to muster the courage needed to pull down the trigger. To let it all end. To go back to a place that even the thought of still terrified the shit out of him, made his heart pound sometimes to the point where he wondered if he might die from it. It still made him throw up some nights from his worst memories and drink until he couldn't think about anything anymore, emphasized the years his soul had worn in a body too young for him._

_It still hurt, if he let himself fall too deep and far into that dark pit, like his heart being carved out of his chest again. Like demon claws clenching around his guts. Like ripping his lungs out so he couldn't breathe for years and never die._

_Until the darkness took over._

_And then it didn't hurt anymore._

_Then all he wanted was to hurt someone else (hurt Sammy. The closest and the worst)._

_"I should remind you that your suicide attempt will be futile, as heaven will merely bring you back."_

_Dean's jaw clenched at the familiar monotonous, gravelly voice piping up from behind him. He was getting real fucking sick and tired of hearing about what heaven wanted from him and about what they could do to him or his brother._

_He opened his eyes, gun lowering as he turned around and saw Cas standing behind him, beige trench coat and sea blue eyes and mussed up hair._

_"Yeah, well, heaven can blow me, Cas." Cas looked puzzled by the phrase, opening his mouth to undoubtedly ask why any movement of currents of air on Dean was relevant to this conversation. Dean rolled his eyes and cut him off, "And let em' know that if they try somethin' like that, then my next move would be to burn myself to death in holy oil."_

_Cas was silent, staring at him with his permanently etched scowl, and Dean knew he won. He huffed, smirking, teeth bared slightly in a half-rictus._

_"Yeah, bet you dickwads wouldn't be able to touch me after that, huh?"_

_"Suicide is considered to be a major sin," Cas disputed. Tried to. "You will return to Hell if you proceed."_

_He thought about the tears in his little brother's eyes today, the wounds on his body from his own fists like smudged ink all over, the way he couldn't move without being in pain anymore. His heart folded in on itself, with sorrow and pain and fear (terror, of going to Hell again, of staying here and breaking the people he loved)._

_"I don't care," Dean said, all cocky triumph and bravado draining out of him, and the words came out breathlessly tired. He felt the battered and raw muscles of his body suddenly become heavier by tenfold. "Better that way."_

_"Do I have to remind you of what stands between the angels and your brother?" Castiel asked. "If you are gone, Sam has no hope of being saved, and therefore—"_

_"Do you even_ know _what I did to him?" His voice bordered on an angry, rapid bellow, his controlled voice raw and loud and strained._

_"I saw him, yes."_

_"I can't do that again._ Ever _."_

_Castiel nodded, once, and looked away._

_Silence fell over them then, and it seemed to be drowning him. It was nearly pindrop quiet on this side of town at this time of night._

_Some part of Dean hoped this would be it, that Cas would fly away and leave him to his devices. The other part of him suspected the damn angel was cooking something else up in his head to persuade him against his decision._

_"Angels cannot predict what the future holds," Cas cut through then, staring past Dean as he spoke. "But we do have a greater sense of accuracy regarding probabilities of what may occur; a more advanced ability to compute of the many million outcomes, and how likely it is for each of them to come to pass."_

_Dean cocked an eyebrow in a,_ the point _? Out of everything, that was the last thing he expected him to say. What was this, philosophy class?_

_Castiel did look at him then, meeting his gaze. He tilted his head slightly, stepping forward until he was right in front of Dean, erythraean eyes staring intently into his own. "Do you know what will happen if you die today, Dean?"_

_Dean wanted to back away, wanted to look somewhere else from the gaze boring into him. He held his ground, stoically not averting his own, and rooted himself to the spot with fierce adamance._

_"Sam will go insane with his grief of losing you twice, permanently this time, of failing to save you as he had been trying to, of the way things ended between you two. He will grow full of abhorrence and rage, and he will become even more determined to end Lilith for what she did to you, for what he believes is the cause of your suicide, so he will ingest more and more power and he will perfect his abilities until it becomes an effortless part of him. He may grow strong and adamant enough to evade us and he will destroy her."_

_Castiel paused, his blue eyes slightly intensifying even more._

_"Lucifer will never rise, but that will not matter, because your brother will find that killing Lilith did not quench his hatred and rage and grief. He will numb himself by intaking copious amounts of his filthy, demonic drug, and he will change into a man that has lost all humanity and conscience, driven by nothing but an all-consuming need to forget your loss and the anguish of it, because in losing you, he lost everything he has ever had and there is nothing else left."_

_At this point, he seriously doubted Sam would take his loss_ that _hard._

_"He will then redirect it all towards everything that cannot mean to him what you did. He will overpower heaven and rise above the highest ranked demons of Hell, and he will lead an army to cast Hellfire on Earth, with Ruby by his side as his consort. He will drag the world to its end with his bare hands over the course of decades, all because you are not in it."_

_Dean scoffed derisively, looking away. As if Sam's powers could ever reach that level. Bringing on his own version of fucking_ armageddon _? All because, what, he lost his sick, fucked up bastard of a brother? The same piece of shit that kept whaling on him because he kept losing his grip on reality?_

_This was bullshit._

_Fucking bullshit. All of it._

_"You really thought I would buy that Sid and Nancy bullshit?" Dean sneered. He chuckled mirthlessly, shaking his head. Did Cas really underestimate his intelligence that much, or was he just stupid as fuck himself? "Fuck, you sons of bitches will make up anything just to keep me under your thumb. Give it a rest and find someone else to save the world, because I'm not the guy you want. I can't even fucking help myself."_

_"Sam destroyed Samhain with nothing but the reserves of his power." The angel crossed another step forward, maintaining eye-contact and doubling Dean's discomfort with the proximity. "He took down Alistair with a few strong doses of demon blood, and he has accessed only a mere fraction of the extent of his control over them. Azazel… had he not preferred Sam from the start, despite his pretense of hosting the trials, to be the leader of his demonic army and to bring Hell on Earth?"_

"So, Dean... I gotta thank you. You see, demons can't resurrect people, unless a deal is made. I know, red tape—it'll make you nuts. But thanks to you, Sammy's back in rotation."

_"Do you not believe, then, that if all that kept him sane and humane was lost, he can and will bring ruin?"_

_"Sam's not going to go berserk over_ me _, for fuck's sake!" Dean gritted out furiously. Fuck Cas and his shitty, pathetic lies. Fuck heaven and hell and the world and Sam and his black-eyed whore of a girlfriend and his own fucking inability to be sane and normal. Fuck everything!_

_"I have been watching you, and by extension, Sam since you were both born. You severely underestimate what you mean to your brother, and the extreme lengths he would go to in your name."_

_Dean's eyes flicked down then, staring blurrily past Cas' shoulder instead, breathing too hard and feeling like he couldn't get in any air at all, suffocating under the weight of all that was loading down on his shoulders and mind and heart, the angel's unwavering certainty of the horrendous future and the wild, fierce conviction in the veracity of his words, burning in his eyes._

_Dean didn't believe any of this. He couldn't._

_If he did, then he would have to stay (to make sure Sam wouldn't become everything he had once been terrified of becoming, and he should be the last fucking guy to do that job), and he couldn't do that. He couldn't do it._

_"If you do not believe me, then you may proceed with what you are doing," Cas said, low and a tinge of knowing in the barest crinkle of his eyes, easy to miss on his otherwise impassive face. "Let your brother become what may become of him, and let the world perish. I suppose it will no longer be your concern once you are out of it."_

_He vanished then, the breeze of his fluttering wings cooling Dean's face and ruffling his hair._

_Dean tried to harden the heart that was sinking down to his feet, tried to keep it right where it was. Set his face rigid with forced determination, raising the gun to his chin._

_He made it up._

_He made it all up, just to get in his head, just to get him to do their bidding. That was it._

_He would die for many, for friends and family and strangers, but God knew that Sam was the only thing, the_ only _fucking thing he lived for in this shitty-ass, fucked up universe, the only thing he would stay for. And Cas was just using that knowledge against him by making up tales that touched on just that._

_Just pure and utter fucking bullshit. Nothing more._

_He pushed the gun more firmly up against his chin, until it cut off the air passing through his throat almost completely, hammering chest heaving as his breaths rushed rapidly through his nose instead._

_But Cas' words were still spinning around his head, and he was thinking of Sam killing Samhain with barely anything of his powers left, and Alistair, Dean's_ worst _fucking nightmare, whose pale white eyes still haunted him day and night. Alistair, the Grand Torturer of Hell whose very name echoed terror, that could beat angels down to a bloody pulp and make other demons cower in fear._ Dead _._

_Dead at Sam's hand, using nothing but his mind. Sam who was still learning to explore these fucked up, dark powers flowing through his veins, and already striking down the fiercest demons. Sam, the boy that everyone said was destined to lead Hell on Earth, the boy Hell said was meant to be its king._

_Dean never really bought it, just because of the mere thought that he was_ Sammy _, for fuck's sake. Sammy who felt guilty for not leaving shitty diners a tip because they didn't have enough money to._

_But it didn't matter._

_It didn't matter._

_Because Sam was better off without him around. He was better off with his worthless, broken and rabid piece of shit of a brother who couldn't keep anything of himself in check, mind or fists, dead and gone._

_And Dean could end it now and he would never have to know. Maybe Cas got some of it right. Maybe he didn't. But Dean would never have to know. It wouldn't_ be _his goddamn problem anymore. Maybe after Dean died, Sam would grieve and he would move on once he understood what was good for him._

_Or maybe he would shatter apart and shatter the world like Cas said, somehow after everything, driven by the same all-consuming, mindless grief and anguish that led Dean to doom his own soul for an expected eternity in Hell, except now with a drug that overblew his rage and abilities that could one day grow strong enough to bring about Hell on Earth._

_But Dean wouldn't have to know. He would have done his part in keeping Sam safe._

_So it didn't matter._

_Right?_

**...**

I could have been dead by now _, Dean was thinking, counting down the visible wounds on Sam, all the wounds made by his own hands. The mournful fatigue was aching down to his bones, shoving his heart down into its cavity._

 _He was thinking,_ I came back again when I shouldn't have.

You have to watch  _out_  for me _, Sam's voice threaded through his mind, drunk and scared and hurting, red-rimmed eyes staring pointedly at him back in that haunted hotel._ And if I ever turn into something that I'm not...

If it's the last thing I do, I'm gonna save you, _his own voice echoed in his head after, a vow made with too much conviction._

_Dean ran a hand down his face tiredly, dropping down to the edge of his own bed. His palm slid over to rest on his mouth instead, fingers rubbing at it, elbows on his thighs as he hunched over. His heavy eyes burned from a lack of sleep, from something else entirely._

_"What am I supposed to do?" Dean whispered, watching Sam breathe in the dark, soft snuffs of inhales and squeaky exhales through his bruised nose, watching his chest rise and fall. "Fuck, Sammy, what am I supposed to do?"_

_No matter what he did, Sammy got hurt._

_And he didn't know what to do._

_If it had all been true, what Cas said..._

_He didn't know which was better or worse, which of his choices caused the least damage to his brother and to his own sanity and peace of mind. All he knew was that whatever he did, whether he stayed or left forever, Sammy got hurt, and it was all because of him, and he couldn't protect him from it. Couldn't do a goddamn fucking_ thing _._

_"How am I supposed to save you when I'm the one that needs saving?"_

**...**

In the end, nothing would have helped heaven and hell's twisted, fucked up scheme better than Dean himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kinda sorta really excited to share this chapter. I found it interesting to come up with, but I hope the execution was done well, and I hope more than anything that you guys enjoyed it. I also hope you guys found the reveal satisfactory. I think it looked better in my head, but at least Sam got a hug, because the poor boy really needed it. It took waaay too long, I know, which I sort of regret and hate because it seems too stretched out at this point, but at least it's here.
> 
> I'm curious as to whether you believe in Cas' 'prediction' of the future. That's something I leave up to you, but personally I think that they're both crazy codependent, even if it seems less obvious from Sam's side, but canonically we've seen just how crazy Sam goes when he loses Dean (except in s8, which we can all agree was pretty OOC, but then it could also be that he's suffered so much at that point that losing Dean just broke him and he was so tired that he just sort of shut down), and if you give him powers and an addictive, altering substance that just messed him up even more...
> 
> That's the end of the flashbacks. The next chapter will be set in the real world!
> 
> Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone that took the time to leave their sweet and kind comments. They meant a lot to me!!
> 
> Thank you so, so much to everyone once again that gave kudos, subscribed, bookmarked and just read all the way until here. Thank you so, so much!! You're all awesome ♡


	19. Chapter 19

** Real World **

They found Dean nearly a week later.

Sam had gotten out of the hospital by the second day, rested for nearly sixteen hours under Bobby's orders and watchful eye. When Cas recovered enough of his powers, he managed to heal Sam's dislocated shoulder to a great extent and much of his wounds, so he had seen no reason then not to set out to look for Dean, albeit he did so against the old man's wishes.

He started off with talking to several people close by that might have seen a man of his description and picture. It would have been somewhat easier if his brother took the car, because a black '67 Chevy Impala tended to stand out around here, so they would have been more likely able to point him in the right direction than if they had nothing to go on but an image of a tall, thirty year old white male (then again, a man of Dean's appearance, he begrudgingly admitted to himself, and unique dressing style wasn't exactly easy to overlook), would have been able to talk to people at gas stations and examined their surveillance cameras since the Impala had been low on fuel, and Dean would have had to get it refilled.

Nonetheless, Dean wasn't exactly fully in his right mind, so it didn't take too long for him to be found. It was a testament as to just how out of it he was, because Sam knew if Dean really didn't want anyone looking for him, they would have faced a lot of trouble.

When Cas flew back over to Bobby's house with Dean in tow, it became clear just how much Dean hadn't been all there.

Dean hadn't taken anything with him when he left. That would explain why he was still wearing the same clothes he had worn the week before, the scruff of beard on his chin and jaws, but he looked cleaner than he should, which meant he had to have taken a shower at some point.

"You found him three towns from here in a motel?" Sam asked, echoing Cas' earlier words like he couldn't think past them.

That seemed to mean that Dean must have regained some awareness at some point, long enough to catch a ride or hotwire a car and drive towns away, get himself enough money to check himself into a motel and take a shower, but apparently he returned to his trance-like state soon enough.

He looked down at Dean, back on the same cot he spent a month on two weeks ago, but nothing the same about him. They kept him handcuffed, just in case he decided to come back to his psychotic self, but Sam doubted this was all a pretense at this point. If he had any moves to make, he would have made them a long time ago, and Sam didn't see any reason as to  _why_  he would be forcing himself to act like this. He had escaped after all, and he could have made it a lot harder for them to catch him. It hadn't looked like an act a week ago either, before he left, but sometimes Sam did wonder when nothing else made sense.

"Yes, I did," Cas responded.

With the state Dean was in, they were so unbelievably lucky that he didn't get caught in the hands of every fucking thing out there that might want his pound of flesh right now.

"Right, um." Sam nodded, cleared his throat slightly. His lips twitched into a small, grateful smile. "Thanks, Cas. Really."

"Of course."

**…**

He was shaving off Dean's week old facial hair.

And Dean didn't move an inch throughout any of it.

"What's going on with you, man?" Sam asked softly, wiping off the remnants of his shaving cream with a cloth.

All he got in response was silence and a blank, unwavering stare at the spinning ceiling fan of the panic room.

"It's a little weird, but… I think I preferred the psychopathic you." He put aside the tray of supplies on top of the small table he brought along, which consisted of a razor, shaving foam spray, sponge and a bowl of water. There was a fresh change of folded clothes balanced next to it. "I mean, at least  _that_  didn't scare the shit out of me." Sam huffed out a slightly nervous chuckle.

Sam wondered if Dean could hear him, but he was just too locked up in the deep haze and scatter of his mind to be able to respond.

Or if he couldn't hear anything at all from where he was.

He hesitated for a brief moment, not quite confident that his touch would be welcomed, before he decided that Dean might not be in a position to mind it so much. He slid a hand over the short crop of his hair, hoping that it could soothe him, even just a little, from whatever he was seeing, whatever it was that left him so lost.

"When you're ready, come back, okay?" Sam murmured.

**…**

"So, I'm, uh…" Sam hesitated, part of him wanting to say it, just to see if he could get a reaction, and the other part not yet sure if he was ready to provide him with that kind of ammo. The former part won out. "I-I'm Lucifer's vessel."

He ducked his eyes back to his working hands, wiping the sponge over Dean's bicep.

"He, uh… he came to me in my dreams. Told me that and… I told him I wouldn't let it happen. That I'd kill myself before I… but he said he'd just bring me back. So." Sam turned a little to the bowl of water, squeezing the dirty excess out before soaking it in again. He couldn't bring himself to look at Dean's face, even though he had no idea if any of it even got through. "He sounded so sure. So fucking sure that I would…" He swallowed, shaking his head. "That I would say yes."

He wondered what his own Dean would say. Would he panic and worry? Would it be something consoling and warm and reassuring as it usually was? At this point, with the way things had been between them, Sam doubted that. He sure wouldn't deserve it, not when he brought this upon himself. Most likely, it would be a quick, weary and dismissive 'we'll figure it out'. Often, they were words of comfort, but Sam didn't think Dean would feel like being very comforting to Sam right now.

He missed him so much, it hurt to breathe.

Dean was right here, but he missed him all the fucking time.

**…**

It was after another two days that it happened.

"What happened to you?" Sam asked quietly, not really expecting a response. It had been a nagging question in his mind, ever since this whole thing began, but Sam had never quite managed to get a straight answer out of him about that. Whatever happened, it had to have been  _bad_ , but Sam couldn't link it to anything, couldn't think of anything so bad that it would change Dean like this.

He didn't anticipate an answer. Dean was still staring up at the ceiling, still hadn't moved an inch in all the time Sam had sat with him.

But then—

"You did."

The sudden disruption in the silence by a voice not his own nearly made him startle and drop the razor he was holding. For a moment, he was paralyzed.

"Dean? Thank god," Sam managed, his words coming out in a breath, when the astonishment passed, turning into relief. He leaned forward, touching his shoulder. He wanted to keep him talking, so fucking afraid of losing him again, but he couldn't get his mouth to work for a minute from the billow of emotions. He wondered if Dean had been listening to all his confessions this whole time. When he finally managed to get a hold of himself, he questioned, "What—what do you mean? What did I do?" He realized promptly that that was a pretty dumb question to ask, considering everything he had done the past year.

But there had to be something different there, something else he had done in that world, something  _worse_.

He felt the shame and guilt and remorse grip its fingers around his gut again.

The quiet that followed was so long that Sam's heart began to sink in his chest. He was starting to think that this was all he would get, that Dean had gone back to his dazed state.

But then, Dean's head shifted a little in his direction, his sunken, shadowy eyes turning to look at him. They were still glazed over slightly, still empty, but not quite in the same way. It wasn't that rage, burning so dark and deep it looked like frigidity.

It was pure and utter nothingness, like he was stripped of everything he could ever feel, including the darkness, the hollowness, the ice. Like everything in him was shutting down.

"Wasn't the same...when I came back. You weren't either." His voice was strained, grated, painfully quiet, like it was taking too much of him to talk. "Needed the world to be quiet. For you to stop. You didn't."

Dean wasn't the same after he came back from Hell. Not here either. He couldn't ever have been, after seeing what he saw and suffering what he suffered and being forced to do what he did, to feel what he felt. That wasn't anything new.

But there, it had to have been more than that. This—the way he had been when he woke up; had it all been a direct result of whay he went through in Hell, somehow?

Sam sure as hell knew he himself wasn't the same either, but if this was something that Dean brought back with him—this darkness—then Sam's actions of the past year, in that world, could have been ten times more aggravating and agonizing to handle.

"You became like this because of—of Hell," Sam said softly.  _Of me (_ This was all  _his_ fault. Dean went there for  _him_ , and all he did was make everything worse). It was a statement seeking confirmation.

But why did he? Why didn't his own Dean?

"But… how come you…" His voice faded off, unsure if it was okay to ask something like that, unsure if he even  _wanted_  to know.

"I dream of his life," Dean said, tired and monotone, answering questions like a robot programmed to. "His Hell too. Some things he didn't have. Worse."

It took a second to decrypt his concise statements.

But then it made sense.

And in those few words, much of the story behind the man his brother had become in that world became clear.

There were some things that he went through that his own Dean never did, some things that made it all a lot more traumatic. Whatever his own Dean suffered had been horrible beyond imagination, but maybe if it had been any worse than that...

It had to have been an after-effect of suffering something too horrendous to cope with, perhaps even a defense mechanism of sorts.

There was something chilling about the thought that his own Dean was so close to becoming this too.

And something so terribly saddening, to think that something could hurt his big brother so much that he would become someone like  _this_  to protect himself.

"What did they do to you?" Sam slid his hand slightly closer, felt the side of it brush Dean's, but didn't dare make his attempt to physically console him any more obvious.

He never got an answer.

**...**

The book was quite old and rarely heard of, and written specifically for the hunting community. The author hid behind a penname and seemed to know a lot about these kinds of things, and Bobby told him that V. Falcone was rumored to have been born with a special ability to travel between worlds, but his or her identity and what they were was still a mystery to this day.

"There are four types of experiences with parallel universes, by order of how much power is required to create each of them," Sam summarized, glancing up at Bobby briefly before returning to his reading. "There are dreams, like with djinns, although it's debatable whether this can be classified as such. Then there's morphing the world itself around the experiencer, followed by actually, bodily transferring them in the alternate world. By far, the most complicated one is…"

Bobby sipped on his beer. He cocked an eyebrow when the pause went on too long. Sam's eyes were darting across the page with rapt attention.

"Cas said Dean's consciousness had been transferred, either to another body or another world. The same, of course, happened to  _him_. This is the only method by which the person begins to adapt, meaning they take on the characteristics of the person whose body they had been transferred into, since, even if it's another consciousness, the mind and soul still remain the same."

Sam leaned back, huffing to himself. It felt so obvious when he thought about it. He shared an awed glance with Bobby, who snorted out an, "Well, I'll be damned."

"He's changing into  _our_  Dean," Sam continued. That was sort of a good thing, wasn't it?

And then he thought about how Dean would feel, knowing what he had become under the influence of it all, and suddenly he didn't think it was.

And then another thought occurred to him, one that made his heart drop in his chest like a heavy stone.

The realization seemed to find Bobby too, who spoke up, "But if this is happening here…"

"It's happening to our Dean there too."

**…**

"We think we know what's happening to you," Sam said lightly, like the air itself was too fragile for sound. Like Dean was.

Sam didn't want to think about how he would feel over what the darkness had made him become once he fully progressed to adapting to his own Dean's soul and mind. The reason why any of it barely seemed to affect him right now was because the actual change had only just started, Sam supposed. Right now, he seemed to stand in the middle of who he had been and who he would become, where he felt the true incarnation of that hollowness (not the mask, the calm and forced control), the pure and deep, utter nothingness. Being stripped away of all the overwhelming, boundless abhorrence and hostility he had felt then had to be jarring and emptying.

Dean didn't say anything, so Sam continued, "You're changing. Um, adapting, actually. Because, you know, you're in  _my_  Dean's body, and it's still his soul and mind, so your consciousness is sort of just… adjusting to that. I-I don't know if that makes sense to you, but uh...yeah. That. That's what's been happening, if you were wondering."

Dean didn't seem to hear him at all.

Sam sat beside him for many hours. One hour turned to two and two turned to five and five turned to seven. He went in and out throughout, to get a new book from the library, to check up on Bobby, to bring Dean supplies and food and water.

But ultimately, in the end, he returned to Dean's side.

At night, some time around eleven, Sam scooted his chair back and stood up with a groan, his muscles all bunched up and numbed.

He turned around, towards the door, ready to leave.

For the first time throughout the entire day, Dean spoke.

"It's gonna hurt, isn't it?"

Sam stilled.

And the words that followed stabbed him right through the gut.

"When it all comes back. Hell. What I did." It sounded empty, surface-level. No feeling and all knowing.

"Dean..." Sam started, turning around to look at him with undecided words poised on his lips, but he didn't know what he wanted to say. Dean's gaze didn't budge from the top of the panic room.

"What I did to you." Sam didn't entirely know what he did to him there, just bits and pieces from his passing comments, but seeing the way this Dean had been, it couldn't have been pretty.

Sam breathed in lightly, and then breathed out lightly, and his mind cleared just enough for him to be able to say, "It doesn't matter, because I'll be right here." He sounded calm and collected and confident, even when there was something inside of him clenching, throbbing with fear at the idea that he might not know how to help him when he did come back to himself. It would all be so catastrophic on Dean's psyche. "We'll get through this, like we always do."

…

By the third day, Dean was far more responsive. He still didn't talk much, but that was okay, because at least he listened and he saw Sam and he didn't look so lost anymore, which meant he might be regaining his composure and awareness again. He ate without his help and he shaved on his own and he cleaned himself up. He still moved too slow, dragged his limbs like his bones were too heavy, and he always looked exhausted even after he slept twelve hours straight.

"You went through with it," Dean said. It was sudden enough to make Sam go still with astonishment.

"With what?" he asked, after he recovered, putting down his book on his lap.

He'd been sitting next to Dean for the past couple of hours, and it had been pindrop quiet. Sam had honestly expected it to stay that way for the rest of the day, like it had been yesterday (until before he left, at least, and left him unable to sleep for three hours after) but he was glad it didn't. It was a sign of improvement.

"Lilith," Dean said.

Sam frowned, uncertain as to what Dean was getting at here. He was most likely referring to the night Sam went into the convent with Ruby and killed Lilith. Undoubtedly, he had seen something in his memory dreams, but the question didn't make sense. Had something been different in the other world?

"I… I did. Yeah."

"After the voicemail."

Sam felt his face fall slightly. He didn't get why Dean was bringing that up right now.

"Uh. Yeah. I mean… I guess I just…"

_I didn't care whether I lived or died, because I didn't think it mattered to you either._

Sam glanced down at his hands. "I… I don't know. Was that supposed to stop me?"

"Think so." Dean shrugged, staring at the ceiling. "I mean… he poured his heart out there."

Sam scoffed bitterly. "Yeah. Really felt the love."

"Said you were still his brother. Still family."

Sam's eyebrows scrunched together, lifting his eyes to him. He shook his head. "That's not what he said."

"It is."

"He told me I was a vampire. A monster."

Dean went silent at that.

Sam tried to wrap his head around what he just heard, tried to make it make sense. This couldn't be true, right? It couldn't...

He couldn't tell if Dean was lying. He couldn't tell if he  _had_  any reason to lie about this.

"That's what I said to him," Dean said quietly. "In the voicemail. After I, uh… I. I changed."

"Wasn't you."

"He didn't give up on you," Dean continued, like he never said anything.

All this time, he had been listening to the voicemail, over and over, believing it had been Dean, that he had once, even if for a moment, wanted to kill him with his own hands the next time he saw him, had seen him as nothing more than another monster to hunt.

Sam had believed it then, and he had gone through and done the second worst thing he had ever done in his life.

The first being just how fucking badly he failed his big brother in that entire year, right after he came back from the most horrific place to ever exist.

Now that he thought about it, Dean had been pissed and depressed and hurt, but he had given zero indication that he had ever said those words. Sam had merely thought he, for whatever reason, changed his mind about the way he felt and decided to give Sam another chance. A chance he hadn't deserved.

But considering all the forces that had been at play, that had been wanting Sam to jumpstart the end of the world…

Dean had no reason to lie.

"Why are you telling me this?" Sam asked softly.

Dean shrugged. "Thought you already knew."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so very much to all the wonderful people that took the time to leave their kind and lovely feedback, that left kudos and bookmarked and subscribed and read, silent and otherwise. Thank you so much!! You're all awesome and I hope you keep enjoying the story!


	20. Chapter 20

 

** Alternate World **

Ever since Sam found out the truth two weeks ago, things have been… better. Easier.

They left Bobby's about a week ago, after Sam had recuperated enough to satisfy Dean, in order to keep doing what they had been doing. Bobby had handed Sam a couple of books that might help their situation and promised them a call if he found anything himself.

Nowadays though, Dean constantly felt like he was trying too hard to force things into a normality that they could never go back to. That Sam sure as hell couldn't. Dean never expected him to either, because he doubted anyone could move on so easily from something like that.

Dean knew  _he_  himself couldn't. The knowledge of the things the hands of this body had done to his baby brother weighed on his flesh and bones and skin, on his mind, every moment of every day, and that would never go away. Not for a long time. Maybe not even when he finally did go back to where he belonged.

But Dean wasn't the only one here, wasn't the only one trying to pretend like nothing ever happened in these last couple of months.

These days, Sammy seemed to be trying to make it all last, like it was the last time he would ever have this, like he was trying to drink it all in before it got taken away again.

Sam  _actively_  asked him if he wanted to turn his music up, when his own Sam would have thrown him one of his many patented bitch faces at him for even  _thinking_  about it. Dean was too stunned to even answer the first time it happened, so Sam just reached forward and twisted the knob himself to increase the volume.

The kid brought him pie, almost every time he went out to get them food. For breakfast or lunch or dinner. And Dean had, on more than one occasion, caught Sam watching him scarf it all down with a small, fond smile curving at his lips, something impossibly soft in his eyes and that smile.

He grinned and laughed at all of Dean's jokes.  _All_  of them. Even the stupidest ones that Dean was certain would have made his own Sam roll his eyes and call him an idiot. Don't get him wrong, Dean liked making the kid laugh, and nowadays, more often than not, that seemed to be his only thought behind every shitty one-liner he cracked, just to watch Sam snort a smile or huff a chuckle (because maybe it was the least he could do, for every fucking time he made him hurt here instead).

It was just that it kind of really,  _really_  fucked him up on the inside.

There was something very painfully desperate in their dynamic here, from both their ends; Dean desperate to redeem himself and make amends and reassure Sam that he  _could_  feel safe around him again (even with that same darkness awakening in him, because there was no way he would let it touch his kid brother); Sam desperate for penance too, to remember what it was like to have his big brother back, to recreate his image of Dean in his mind, to savor every moment of it until he couldn't.

But even after knowing the truth, Dean could tell Sammy wasn't okay, wasn't even close to being out of that mindset that he had been in all these months. He didn't entirely feel safe around Dean, and as much as that killed him, Dean knew he couldn't expect him to. He was still agitated and jumpy around him, still flinched back if he moved too fast around him or if he heard something fall too loudly in the motel room. He still panicked when he messed up and made mistakes, the smallest things that had once barely even mattered, but the look they put on Sam's face was one Dean would rather never see again.

Like on a morning two days ago, when he freaked out over accidentally dropping a cup of coffee. Yeah. Just dropping a fucking cup of  _coffee_ , that was it, and then he was right back to babbling apologies again and all nervous, twitchy smiles desperately meant to calm him down as he frantically, shakily tried to sop up the mess up with a towel and  _I'll get you another one, won't take long, just ten minutes more—_

Somehow, it was worse like that, when he  _knew_  he wasn't him and he still thought Dean wouldn't rather fucking die than lay a finger on him like that.

So if this consistent, dull heartache made Dean dote on the kid a little more than he ever would have back where he came from, who gave a shit? He sure as hell didn't, not when he  _remembered_. And when he did, not a lot else seemed to matter besides making Sammy feel cared for and protected; not his own rule against chick-flick moments, and not even the weight of the past year that had once settled between them like a solid barrier. Not now.

Dean fussed a lot more over him eating properly (none of that nasty-ass, calorie-lacking rabbit food shit though, because Sammy really needed to get some meat on his bones), checked over his past injuries too much and he made sure that whenever he woke up from a nightmare at night, of whatever it might be, that he went back to sleep feeling calmer and safer. He pulled his gigantic and too skinny little brother into his chest and held him there until his breathing wasn't so erratic and his heartbeats weren't so unsteady. He praised Sam more on his research work with decade old phrases such as  _good job, Sammy_  and  _that's my boy._

And he tried to make him laugh every chance he got, just because it made Sam look like he had forgotten all the bad stuff, even if for a little bit, just because Dean thought Sammy deserved to.

And if Sam was a little too accepting of it all, if he wore a soft, wistful smile whenever Dean motherhenned over him too much or leaned into him like it was the last time Dean would ever let him touch him or was more entertained by his shitty barbs than he should be or beamed at Dean's pride on him… well, Dean didn't exactly mind.

It just shouldn't break his stupid fucking heart the way it did every single time.

**…**

"Pardon?"

"I'm just saying..." Sam started.

"That, what, you wanna be fucking bait?" Dean snapped, and then immediately regretted it. Sam's features twitched slightly in nervousness, gaze averting down to his clasped hands between his thighs. Dean turned away, closing his eyes and trying to maintain control.

"Wendigos  _are_  hard to hunt without bait, you know," Sam mumbled from behind him. "They're fast as hell... "

Five bodies in the past nine months, found dead in the woods, mauled and half-eaten. It couldn't be a werewolf, because their hearts were still pretty much intact. Not a black dog or any other wild beast it could possibly be, because the physical appearance, length and width, of the claw marks didn't match. It was clear enough what they were dealing with here, but the problem was locating it. Wendigos were generally a two man hunt, but the more, the merrier, since these sons of bitches were fast as hell. Several pairs of eyes made it a lot easier to catch them on fire with a flamethrower, and several other armed men to get it if one or the other couldn't. There were times when hunters used voluntary baits to lure them out and kill them, but that was a dangerous gig for the one playing bait.

Wendigos didn't exactly feel like the most dangerous thing anymore, after everything that they had faced, but right now, Dean knew it wasn't something he was willing to put Sam at risk with.

"Yeah," Dean said, turning back to look at him. "But why do  _you_  have to be it? You're not even in top shape, man. Your ribs are still healing."

"I've done this in worse shape," Sam tried to persuade. Because, apparently, that was just  _supposed_  to fucking convince him.

"And that makes it better? Because that fucking bastard  _made_  you do it when you were even more banged—"

"It wasn't that bad," Sam said, too quick to defend. Dean fucking  _loathed_  this Stockholm Syndrome shit. "He'd usually get it before it got me."

"Oh, usually?" A satirical half-smile twisted at his lips. "That—that's just fucking great to hear, Sam. And what about the not so  _usually_?"

Sam shrugged. "It's kinda all that I've been good for these past few months, if you haven't noticed." Dean noticed pretty easily that he didn't answer the question. He reminded himself that blowing up on Sammy at this point would just be counterproductive and a total asshole move. "That and research. So I don't mind it. At least out there, I'm. I'm useful, you know?"

"This is  _not_  happening, Sammy. End of story."

"Dean…"

 _Fucking do not_ , Dean thought, just as those goddamn  _eyes_  again—

 _And_  Dean felt himself wilt inside. Not on the bait thing, but…

"Look, Sammy, you wanna tag along on a hunt? Fine. But you've been out of this job way too long and you're not exactly a hunk right now." Dean gestured vaguely at the kid's bony stature. Seeing the embarrassment begin to flood into Sam's face, he quickly added, "And that's okay. We're gonna build you back up, alright? But until then, I want you to stay put. Not because I don't trust you, but because it's for your own good."

Sam opened his mouth, and then closed it back up. Dean took that as agreement.

"Alright. Good. And when this does happen, you're not coming along as bait, you understand me? You're coming with me as a hunter."

Except Sam didn't exactly look satisfied with that plan.

"What?"

Sam shook his head.

"What is it? Just spit it out."

"I… I just, um. I mean, we don't know how long you're gonna… you're gonna be here, you know? And I've just been cooped up way too long and I  _need_  to, Dean. I need to be out there, stop being in my head all the time like this because honestly… it's not doing me a whole lot of good.  _I'm_  not doing a whole lot of good, and I'd like to stop feeling so useless."

On one hand, Dean was glad to see Sam voicing his thoughts and what he wanted. On the other hand, Dean  _really_  wished he felt more capable of saying no to the kid.

**…**

They go to a bar to celebrate a successful hunt, Sam's first in months. Simple one, salt-and-burn, but the kid looked revved at the end of the day all the same.

Sam did pretty well, great even, all things considered, and Dean wasn't surprised, per se, but it had been somewhat of a constant source of mild anxiety while they were on the job. While they did test some of his shooting and combat techniques beforehand and Dean had full faith Sam could hold his own, Dean just couldn't shake off the fear that it might go south, and whether they liked to admit it or not, Sam was still quite not up to par as he had been before those couple of months.

Nonetheless, it was still a huge relief that both of them came out relatively unscathed, besides the usual bruise or two from the common combat.

"You did good today," Dean had told him just as much, after they got into the car. Sam's reaction to any praise nowadays from Dean was always a stab to the chest, but Dean supposed he was getting used to that.

Yeah, not really.

At the bar, things were going pretty damn great. Dean didn't expect this much progress between the two of them this soon, but he supposed much of the reason why Sam seemed so relaxed at the moment was due to the alcohol they consumed.

It was the best day they've had together in a while.

And for Sam? Probably even more so.

They drank, played pool, and maybe almost forgot about last year and the apocalypse looming over their heads and the circumstances of this world.

Almost.

Because there were always those little seams in the fabric of their interactions, that stuck out too clearly. The way Sam watched him like he was trying to drink it all in, every moment and experience that he might never have again. Things that once annoyed him to no end about Dean were now simply endearing. The way he still thought twice about what he said and did around Dean. And it all served to remind Dean of just how different everything was here, how not normal.

Sam was like a dying man merely content to still be breathing, to live his final moments with someone he loved.

It were the smallest things, things that Dean hadn't realized before were such a huge part of them, that reminded him that they would never be what they used to be here in this world, ever, no matter how hard Dean tried to fix things, no matter how much he doted on the kid. He supposed he hadn't ever really expected them to. To expect Sammy to ever go back to feeling the way he did about him before it all would be to minimize the horrors he suffered here at his hands.

But maybe back in his own world, they could go back.

And when that thought threaded into his mind, it brought with it an overwhelming billow of relief that opened his lungs up a bit more, that made it easier to breathe again.

But the stones in his chest remained at the idea of leaving Sammy behind. Leaving him in the same life that broke him so thoroughly.

Dean found himself reaching over and ruffling Sam's hair, partially out of fondness and partially out of mischief, but Sam didn't swat at his hands in annoyance and pat down his hair and glare at him the way his own Sam would have, and it was just one more thing that felt like a loss between them.

...

"God, you are  _so_  off your game, little brother," Dean teased, after winning the game second time in a row. "Is it a parallel world thing? I don't remember you being  _this_  bad back there."

Sam rolled his eyes, but the little smile on his face was so painfully fond that Dean couldn't even be satisfied about giving him shit.

"Ever think that maybe I'm just going easy on you?" Sam cleared the pool pockets, holding the cue stick in his other hand. "You know, because I'm a good brother?"

Dean scoffed. "Yeah, right. Why don't you say it like it is? That you fuckin' suck."

Sam huffed out another small smile, raising an eyebrow. "More like you have a fragile ego and I don't wanna deal with you losing all the games and calling all-or-nothing at the end, and winning by cheating."

Dean deemed himself a damn good player, but okay yeah, sometimes that tended to happen when he had a few and Sam had the better coordination.

"I don't do that," Dean muttered, lamely.

Dean suspected that that wasn't it though, and that Sam might have had a better chance at winning if he paid more attention to the game than to Dean.

They banter like that all throughout the next two games too, and it was strange to have fallen into this rhythm again.

Because it still sat in the back of Dean's head, all of it, just like he was sure it did in Sam's too. It felt wrong to be acting like it never happened, like things were okay, like he was ignoring it.

To some extent, it felt like they were just playing a part.

"Hey," Sam nodded at a man sitting across the bar at a stool.

"Rogers?" Dean asked. "Mick Rogers?"

"Looks like him. It's been like, what, eleven years?"

Dean shrugged. "Guess so." He peeled his hip off the side of the pool table, placing his bottle down on the table. "I'm gonna head to the men's room first, before we go talk to him. My bladder's not gonna last a conversation, man." He patted Sam's shoulder and walked off towards the restroom.

**…**

Dean came out of the bathroom to a whole lot of silence in the bar and a familiar voice more aged than he remembered, full of disgust and anger.

"It's all out there, Sam. Everyone knows about the things you've done."

"Look, I don't know what you heard, but—"

Fuck.

There was a muffled smack, like someone shoving hard at someone's chest, steps shuffling back quickly by force followed by an enraged yell of, "Don't fucking lie!"

Dean strode down the narrow length of the hall out into the bar, turned the corner, and there was the scene; Sam trying to mollify the situation with his hands up placatingly, Mick facing him, angry and tense.

"Rogers—"

"If your daddy could see you right now, boy," Mick hissed, a repulsed sneer twisting his features.

"I'm not gonna fight you, okay?" Sam said, quiet and pacifying, hands held up in a gesture of peace and surrender.

And then in one swift motion of thoughtless, impulsive fury, Mick grabbed a bottle off the counter and smashed it right against the side of Sam's head.

The impact was hard enough to make the kid snap to the side and fall at Dean's feet, and it was like with those dickless bastards all over again, hurting his brother and throwing him his way like he was worth nothing, like he wasn't better than every single one of them. There was the same curdle of white-hot fury that exploded in his head, coloring his vision red, that raced through Dean's veins and forced him to be outwardly calmer and more controlled than ever, lest he ended up doing something far more imprudent than beating the fuck out of this guy.

Mick chugged at his whiskey bottle, wiped at the back of his mouth, and nodded, somewhat companionably, at Dean. "Winchester."

Dean stared back, frigid and deadly calm.

"From what I've heard, you ain't too happy about him either, are you?"

And that was going to be the last time he heard some bastard say shit like that.

Dean slowly knelt down to Sam's level, maintaining his icy glare at the man.

He glanced down at Sam, who was still gripping his bleeding head. His hair was curtaining his face, but the tense shoulders indicated that he was probably having one hell of a headache right now. Worse than passing out after getting smashed in the head with a glass bottle like that was probably  _not_  passing out.

Dean placed his hand under Sam's jaw and tilted his head up towards him, carding one hand carefully through his hair to feel for the injury.

"I'm fine," Sam mumbled, his voice too pained and quivering for his words to seem true. "Let's just, uh. Let's just go."

"Can you stand?"

"Y-yeah."

Dean helped him stand up, sat him down on a stool, and then leaned him back against a counter.

He glanced back at Mick, who already seemed to have caught on that he didn't quite understand Dean the first time, but not that he had made a huge mistake when he decided that it was okay to go after his brother. Not yet.

Sam was too busy trying to keep his head together to stop him from pummeling him into the ground.

**…**

"What the  _hell_  is it with every godforsaken thing in this  _fucking_  universe trying to fuck with my fucking kid brother…"

Dean hurled all his shit to the floor angrily as he dug into his duffel bag for the first aid kit. The throb on his freshly bruised knuckles was more of a distant feeling that his mind was barely registering as the intensity of his emotions and fury currently took up all of his attention.

"You didn't have to do that," Sam's voice piped up lowly, the first time he spoke up since the entire ordeal was over by the bartender threatening to call the cops. They walked in complete silence back to the motel room.

"He tried to break your fucking head open with a glass bottle, if you didn't notice," Dean snapped, hurling something heavy enough to emit a loud thud to the ground.

"Yeah, but…" Sam trailed off. "I mean, you kinda… I'm pretty sure he lost a tooth or two."

"He had it coming." Dean flipped his bag over. For fuck's sake, where  _was_  that fucking first aid kit?

"Think you put it in my bag the last time," Sam pointed out.

Dean unzipped Sam's bag and found the medical kit in a few seconds' time.

It was only when he was sitting in front of Sam that he noticed.

Sammy's hands, clasped together on his lap, but they were mildly tremulous. It was a clear attempt at concealing the effect of whatever memories were being dredged up upon seeing Dean's present ardent state. His shoulders were tense, guarded, even though he knew none of the anger was directed at him, but in fact, was on his behalf.

Dean breathed in slowly, closing his eyes. He supposed trauma didn't always care about logic. Not like his own shit with Hell ever did.

He picked out the cotton bud and reached for the trail of blood beginning at Sam's hairline. "You shoulda socked him in the face the moment he started yapping," he muttered, dabbing at the blood.

Sam shrugged. "Wasn't exactly unwarranted."

That made Dean pause in his movements.

"Fuck's sake, you better not be telling me that you think you deserved that bottle to the head, because if you are, so help me god..." Dean really shouldn't be surprised at how deep Sam's self-loathing went. Everything that happened here was the purest manifestation of the extent of Sam's shame and disparaged self-esteem and how far he was willing to go to redeem himself for everything. "For a college boy genius, you're a real goddamn moron sometimes, you know that?"

"Dean…" Sam started, fading tentatively. He paused. "I'm not even sure  _how_  you could be sitting there, not telling me that I deserve a lot worse."

 _Like_ he _probably once did?_  Did he not get that Dean  _wasn't_  him?

Dean's jaw clenched. "This better be the concussion talking…"

"The things that I have done. The things that are happening out there, because of me," Sam said, quiet and resigned, gaze fixated somewhere on or over Dean's shoulder. "You don't think that people get to be pissed for that? That I lost all right to fight back?"

"Sam," Dean said, shaking his head, something of a rueful, mirthless huff of laughter ripping from his throat. "Man, you're shitting me, right?"

"I know you're… somehow, you think differently, and…" Sam blinked, trying to think through the cloud of haze and pain. He shook his head, mouth opening, eyes clenching shut slightly. "Nevermind. It… it doesn't matter. I just. You know, maybe  _it_  is the concussion talking." He smiled slightly, backtracking a bit nervously like he was afraid he just might change Dean's mind after all.

Dean was looking at him, not able to think for a moment. The suffocating weight on his chest made it hard to.

When he could think again, he curled his hand around Sam's jaw and angled it towards him. "If anyone ever hurts you, Sammy, you fight back, okay? You  _always_  fight back." He leaned in slightly, meeting his eyes pointedly. "No matter who it is."

Sam didn't say anything, just glanced up at him wordlessly, which was not the conviction and agreement Dean was craving to see.

"I mean it. The next time someone puts their hand on you, you hurt them twice as bad, you understand me? Even if it's me. Hell,  _especially_  if it's me, because I was the last fucking person in the world that was supposed to do that to you." When he didn't get a response, Dean shook him slightly. "Do you understand me?"

Sam exhaled shallowly, and there were words poised on his lips, perhaps of argument or opposition, but whatever he saw on Dean's face made him back down.

He nodded jerkily instead, once, twice, his inadvertent trademark puppy eyes in place. "Okay, Dean." Dean couldn't tell if the words really got through or not.

**…**

Dean glanced behind him, eying the huddled form of his sleeping little brother under the blankets. Sam's chest was rising and falling evenly, cadenced lilts of breaths moving in and out of him.

He turned back to his laptop, stared at himself colored by the yellow lamplight on the camera screen. He moved the pointer of his mouse over to the circular record button and clicked. The small light beamed near the camera lens of his laptop webcam, and Dean clasped his fingers together on the table and leaned forward, tilting his head downward and staring into the camera.

"Hi there." He shot a cocky little half-smile. "This is Dean Winchester, and I'm here with a general warning and a solidification of some important rules."

"There have been some rumors goin' round, saying that I no longer do my job, and that's made some shitheads go after my brother because they think nobody's lookin' out for him anymore."

*So this goes out to anyone that might be under the misconception that they get to fuck with my kid brother with zero consequences; you touch Sammy, you die."

Dean clicked on the square 'stop recording' button, inclined back on the chair and took a swig of his beer.

He went to his email and sent it to every contact on their list.

**…**

It didn't take long for Sam to find out the next big secret.

Dean could have guessed already that something like this, like a disease in your soul altering your mind and being itself, wasn't something that could remain hidden too long, but they were just starting to get back on track. Sam was just starting to trust him again, starting to feel  _safe_  again, and telling him about this felt like it would throw them right back to square one.

And Dean wanted to delay that for as long as possible. Hell, if he could make it out without that whole thing ever coming out to Sam, he'd be ecstatic.

As it was, Winchesters loved keeping secrets, but a secret like this never could have stayed a secret for long, no matter how good you were at keeping them. Eventually, all truths unveil themselves, one way or another.

And so it did.

Nearly an hour after Sam had left to get them some dinner from a decent diner a few blocks away, Dean felt it begin.

Felt it burning somewhere deep he couldn't pinpoint, a dull warmth growing warmer and warmer like metal absorbing heat, bringing with it a dark, sickening craving quickly becoming insatiable.

It came rapid this time, like a stormy tide washing down on him suddenly rather than a gradual inflow of blinding, white-hot Hellfire trailing on oil.

He wanted to run, like he did every other time, but the black poison seemed to be filling him up in mere seconds, drowning him from the inside, and he knew that getting out of this room was the worst thing he could do right now, because he wouldn't be able to make it somewhere isolated and alone enough to ride this out himself before it took over him.

And then there was the sound of a key in the lock, an unlocking click, a door opening.

And there was Sam.

"Hey," Sam greeted, balancing a handful of bags of food that only served to make Dean sicker when his gut was already full with hot stones, with fire and abhorrence, when the only thing he felt hungry for was violence and agony. "Sorry about the wait. Queue was really long—"

Dean gripped the edge of the desk, shoulders tense and trembling while he leaned over, desperately grappling for his control and sanity. He felt the aching pull of his mind in two opposite directions, of the conflict between the parts of his awareness lost in the darkness and the parts of him that he was still hanging on to, the parts that wanted to hurt and the parts that wanted to keep Sam safe from himself.

"Dean?" Sam asked, concern and worry flooding into his voice. "Dean, hey."

There was the rustle of bags and a low thud, like they were being dropped on a table.

"Don't," Dean grinded out, jaw so tight it felt like his teeth would break. His fists were clenched hard around the desk in an attempt to ground himself into the ache of his finger joints, and it felt like letting go would mean letting go of everything. "Don't come close."

"Dean—"

"Get the hell out."

Sam went silent, and there were parts of Dean that were hoping and begging that he would listen, that he would leave and maybe never come back.

And there were parts of Dean that were hungering for him to stay, for him to give him his blood and pain and—

"Did… did I do something wr—" Sam said, soft and quiet and desper—

Dean tightened his grip on the edge of the wooden desk when they twitched to let go instead, everything, every fibre of him, on the brink of slipping and falling out of his hands. "Get the fuck out," the words came out in a hiss, and it sounded like his own voice but it didn't feel like his mouth was his own.

"I'm sorry—"

" _I said get the fuck out_!" his own voice yelled, but it didn't entirely feel like him behind his voice anymore. The angry gasps of air tearing down his lungs sounded distant and afar, like they were coming from somebody else behind a wall.

And then in one swift motion, his hands released their hold on the desk seemingly of their own accord and not-quite-his-body was spinning around wildly, his vision dim and red, his dazed head screaming loudly with a nauseatingly overbearing need for violence as it exploded with a paroxysm of Hellfire rage, forcing him to lunge forward towards the only moving target it could find.

Sam staggered backwards abruptly, wide-eyed terror and confusion, on instinctive defense as Dean lurched forward towards him, manic and mindless, fists clenching and unclenching hard, fingernails cutting sharp half-moons into his own skin, his hazy mind splitting apart in two.

And in that split-second, Dean did not know what his body (not-his-body) was going to do.

But there were parts of him, muted and too far back, that he held onto with every piece of himself, that reminded him that he still had a choice.

And in the last split-second, his shaking stones of not-his-hands ended up shoving at Sam's chest with an angry roar of, " _GO_!"

Sam tripped backwards, catching his hand on the wall behind him. His expression was torn and hurt, but also pinched with confusion, with worry, with fear.

Fear of Dean, but more than anything,  _for_  Dean.

In the silence, Dean could hear his own breathing, harsh and wheezing. For a moment, he felt like he belonged to himself a little more.

"Go, please, Sammy, just—just run, okay?"

Sam slowly backed out the open door behind him, trembling hands held up in placation.

Dean slammed it shut in his face and, somewhere too deep inside of himself to be distinctly heard, prayed to a being that abandoned them a long time ago that running was exactly what Sammy did this time.

**…**

When the darkness drained for the time being and awareness began flooding back in, Dean found himself sitting in the midst of a thoroughly trashed and demolished room, nothing standing upright, nothing left intact.

For a long hour, he didn't move. Couldn't. For a long hour, his body wouldn't cooperate, his unfocused gaze stuck on a broken clock, mindlessly watching seconds go by into minutes, into an hour.

The broken clock on the ground ticked loudly in the silence, and the only other sound seemed to be the ringing in his own head.

The world around him looked unreal, like a picturesque little painting that seemed realistic at first glance, but if he looked a bit closer, he could see that the strokes of colors were too smooth. The lights were too bright and sharp. It hurt his stretched-thin brain and his fatigue-burnt eyes. Exhaustion and pain settled into his bones like cement, felt like he would sink through the carpeted floor any moment.

When clarity and awareness had sunken in completely, Dean tried to stand, gripping onto the wall he was leaning against.

He stumbled to his feet arduously, and then towards the door, dodging pieces of furniture snapped apart, broken, shattered.

When Dean turned the knob and hauled the door open, prepared (even if not physically) to search the entire town for Sam, he was surprised to find that Sam was right there in front of him.

That he had been leaning against the wall beside the door all along, pale and bright streetlights up ahead in the parking lot coloring him, listening to Dean go insane again.

Sam's gaze lifted up to him, exhaustion weighing down in his eyes, not just of the bodily kind. There was uncertainty beginning to make its way into his face, like he wasn't entirely sure if Dean was himself now, like he wasn't entirely sure that Dean wouldn't start—

But rooted to his spot, nowhere near prepared to leave, to escape.

But maybe it didn't have to mean he would stay either.

Dean's legs were not in a state to keep him upright for long, even though his full weight was supported by the doorway, so he dropped down slowly, carefully, beside Sam, touching shoulders as they sat against the wall.

Sam didn't say anything, just turned his head away from him and looked ahead. Dean didn't look at him either.

The silence stretched on for minutes. Five. Ten. Fifteen. Time in a world had been somewhat distorted ever since he returned from Hell, hadn't been able to estimate it quite right from then on without a watch. There were times when Dean thought it had only been minutes that passed, but it turned out to be hours instead.

It was Dean who broke through the quiet, "I'm sorry."

Sam didn't say anything, and Dean was starting to think that, this was it. This was where it all ended, where Sam decided to leave, and maybe Dean wanted him to, and maybe he didn't.

Dean wished he had told him about it all the day he told him about who he really was. Hell, he should have told him about everything the day it started, powers beyond be damned.

He came close to hurting him. So horribly close.

Sam finally opened his mouth, and this was it. This was it. It should be. It should have been  _it_  a long fucking time ago when that son of a bitch was still driving this body, really—

"You could have told me, you know?" Sam said instead. "That it was happening to you."

So he knew. Of course he figured it out. Sammy was smart, always good at putting two and two together.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" There was a note of weary hurt in his voice, and Dean wasn't sure what reasons he might have come up with in his head. "Did you just—did you just think that I was some kind of a… a coward? That I was going to run—"

Coward was the last thing Dean would call Sam, because there was no one braver that Dean knew of. If he ever thought Sam was going to run, it was because Sam had every right to after everything he did here. If Sam wanted to go, if Sam was afraid that it would be the same thing all over again (even if it wouldn't, not ever, not if Dean had anything to say about it, but then again, didn't  _he_  think the same?), Dean wouldn't dream of stopping him.

But maybe it should have been obvious from the start, the way things had gone down in this world and part of the reason why they had. Sam wasn't one to leave in times like these, no matter how justified he would be to.

How could he have told him?

How could he have let Sam live in that fucking fear again? Let him walk around on eggshells, afraid that one wrong step would make Dean go off like a ticking time bomb?

"I just wanted you to feel safe again," Dean found himself blurting it out, looking at him, desperate and pleading. "Fuck, I just… I didn't want you to be scared anymore, didn't want you think that I was going to—"

"Dean," Sam said, the hurt softening away, but a saddened understanding taking its place.

"I'm not going to let it hurt you, okay?" Dean told him adamantly, his voice willing him to trust him, even if Sam had no reason to. "I won't. Not ever. Not again. And if you're scared, like you have every right to be, then I need you to believe me when I say that if it ever gets that bad again, I will go into the deepest end of some fucking forest and put a bullet in my brain before I let myself lay a hand on you."

Maybe heaven had stopped  _him_  once, but it wasn't going to work on Dean now.

"Don't say that," Sam said, shaking his head. His features seemed to twitch with pain at the thought.

"I will."

"We'll figure it out, okay?" Sam said, looking at him intently, convictedly, in that way he did when he wanted to make Dean believe him. "We will. You don't ever even have to  _think_  about something like that."

Dean vaguely thought of the memory in his dreams, of when he had still been in his right mind enough to think about doing that over hurting Sammy.

He thought twice about it before he really allowed himself to, not sure if Sam would welcome the contact, if he would be okay with it.

But once he made up his mind, Dean tentatively lifted an arm, settling it around his brother's shoulders.

Sam burrowed into him with a small smile, and Dean couldn't help but reciprocate it at the idea that he would still trust him like this after what he had just witnessed now (and everything else before).

The inside of his rawed chest swelled up with a throb of melded affection and sorrow, and Dean leaned the side of his head against Sam's. "Alright, Sammy. Alright."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this was crazy late, and there were some people that were concerned that I have abandoned the story. I am terribly sorry for keeping this on hold for so long. I hope you can forgive me! I don't want to make excuses, so I will not. I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart for your patience and for caring so much about this story. I sadly can't promise if the next update will come too soon, but definitely sooner since half the chapter is already written down. What I can promise is that I will complete this story.
> 
> Thank you so much for all of your kind and wonderful comments. As always, they mean a lot, so thank you so, so much for all the love and support. It means a lot! You're all awesome 💙
> 
> Thank you so much to each and every wonderful reader, silent and otherwise. Thank you for the kudos, the bookmarks, the reads! Thank you for everything. I love you all! *hugs* I hope you enjoy the chapter and that you enjoy the story until the end (two more chapters, that is!)


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mention of past abuse, Dean might be OOC due to dire circumstances
> 
> Author's Note: I kinda found a song that can be interpreted in a way that goes pretty well with this story (with the singer, it's about his drug addiction and from his own perspective about how he gave himself something terrible. For the story, it could be from the perspective of Hell and Dean's darkness). At some point, maybe when I have time, I'd like to edit the lyrics into some of the chapters where suitable, but anywho, it's a beautifully haunting song and 11/10 I recommend
> 
> I hope you guys like the chapter! Two more to go!

 

_I gave you something you can never give back, don't you mind_

_You've seen my face like a heart attack, don't you mind, don't you mind_

_**…** _

_Oh, I think I did something terrible to your body, don't you mind_

_**…** _

_I hurt your brother as well, don't you mind, don't you mind_

_Oh, I was thinking about killin' myself, don't you mind_

_I love you, don't you mind, don't you mind_

 

**- _Me, the 1975_**

 

 

* * *

 

 

**Real Universe**

 

Sam watched him change throughout the month.

There were days when he would go back to his catatonic state, still and unmoving. Sam took care of him as best as he could during those times, even if his hands sometimes shook and the pit of fear dug deeper and deeper throughout the day into his gut.

Dean came back to him every time, but it never stopped being terrifying.

And each time he came back, he was changed a bit more.

Over these past couple of days since the last episode, he had caught his brother's eyes often, finding him staring at him in a way that tore at something in Sam's chest, but also made him feel a somewhat conflicted sense of relief at the signs of life, of humanness and vulnerability, in his eyes.

If only he didn't look so broken and lost.

Sam saw the gears turning in his head often, like he was trying to clear a fog in his mind, perspectives and ideas and thoughts shifting in a whole different direction than what he had known for nearly half a year, trying to process and understand all the memories of the events that occurred when he was altered, and all the emotions he normally would have felt returning now, that he didn't get to before. He couldn't imagine just how jarring and confusing that had to be.

It was all coming back. Sam knew. Months worth of emotional consequences of whatever had gone down in the other world while Dean wasn't himself. Sam didn't fault him for what might have happened there to him at his hands, but knowing Dean, he would blame himself in every possible way for it all. And to be honest, Sam was not sure if he was prepared to deal with that level of mental ordeal, when it all came crashing down.

But damn it all if he wasn't going to try.

**…**

"What in the  _hell_  do you think you're doing, boy?!"

Sam didn't blame Bobby for his impulsive, angry and fearful reaction, considering his prior encounter with Dean whilst he was fully conscious. He figured it would, understandably, bring back that appalling and horrible experience for Bobby upon seeing Dean freed and unbounded.

But, besides a hushed pang of doubt borne of Dean's past devoted and determined attempts at manipulating him when he first unlocked the handcuffs, Sam had been sure for a while now that there was nothing to worry about. If Dean wanted to make a move, he would have done it the moment he was unchained.

"It's okay now, Bobby," Sam reassured quickly. "He's. He's okay."

He glanced at Dean beside him, leaning awkwardly, uncertainly, against the kitchen doorway. He looked too small and vulnerable for hostile who seemed so frigid and hostile only mere weeks ago.

Bobby eyed him warily for a moment, and whatever he had to have seen there loosened something in his eyes and face, some of the suspicion draining away.

"Alright then," Bobby said, not quite happy, but accepting. That was something. "You two ladies gonna stand there all day lookin' pretty? 'Cause grub's gettin' cold."

Sam appreciated that he was trying to act normal with Dean.

Dean didn't speak all throughout the meal, so he and Bobby took up Dean's usual position of filling the silence, as they have been for a while now, by conversing about any possible ideas they might have had on how to resolve their current situations. Sam told him about his findings on the apocalyptic events occurring out there in the world, and about some ancient artifacts that may or may not be of help in their battle against Lucifer and who they were owned by.

Dean didn't say a word all throughout the meal, and Sam couldn't help but feel his silence in the midst of all the sound anyway.

**…**

Sam led Dean to the guest room they had both shared before, clutching his arm, and Dean followed him silently, mindlessly, like he was a blind man tied to him, and it was an entirely different picture than what Sam was used to. Dean had never been one to follow anyone, always the commander, the leader. Sam had always been the one walking a step behind him instead of the other way around.

Something about having Dean here again felt familiar and right, because seeing Dean down on that cot for weeks like a captive (like a demon-blood junkie on withdrawals) hadn't exactly been the best.

But it didn't really help the constant, tight ache gripping inside his chest, which had made its home in him now at this point.

**...**

Nowadays, all they did was sit in front of the TV and not watch what was playing on it.

Sam leaned their shoulders together, once he learned that Dean didn't mind it much when he was in a state like this, and hoped that he would feel less alone in whatever he was lost in, even though, logically, Sam knew that Dean was alone there and he couldn't do a fucking thing to help him find his way out and Sam couldn't really understand as much as he wanted to.

But he liked to think Dean felt his comfort and reassurance. He liked to think Dean felt his presence, that he knew Sam was here for him.

The silence had become a part of them now, hours and hours. Sam usually read his books or used his laptop or just watched whatever crap movie was playing on TV. Sometimes he put all of Dean's favorite movies and TV shows on the DVD, but he wasn't quite sure of what he was hoping for when he did this.

And sometimes he just sat there as well and lost himself in his own thoughts, wishing he could meet his brother in the world he was lost in, in more ways than one.

**...**

Sam woke up to a weight dipping his mattress from behind him, a hand draping tremulously over his bicep.

Sam knew the warmth of that hand like the back of his own, but in the haze of sleep, in the vulnerability of it, his mind recalled memories he hadn't let himself think about in waking moments.

Of waking up to hands wrapped around his throat and of knives and blood and white-hot, throbbing agony in the joint of his shoulder and bicep, the conflicting ripples of overwhelming nausea over the ache of starvation and dryness of dehydration. Words echoing in his head of a voice that belonged to his brother, but didn't quite sound anything like him. In and out of consciousness, to a daylit room and then a room drenched in pure, endless darkness, nobody calling back to his weakened screams.

It sent his heart pounding, fingers curling around the pocket knife under his pillow, not with the intention to hurt, but to ward off long enough to—

And then he was being gathered, pulled by hands around his biceps off the bed and into the solidity of a chest, into gunpowder and leather and warmth, arms wrapping around his back and shoulders too tightly for him to be able to breathe properly, one hand clutching the nape of his neck.

Sam was too shocked to really bother trying to breathe anyway.

"It's okay, Sammy, it's okay," Dean was whispering, his voice rough and brittle and raw, trying to sound harmless and comforting and only managing to sound like he was a thread away from breaking. "Everything's okay. It's gone now. It's all gone." He was rocking them both slightly, like he used to when they were children, soothing him back to sleep after a nightmare. "Won't hurt you anymore, okay? Don't be scared. I'll take care of you… I'll take care of you…"

Sam vaguely thought of Cold Oak, of Dean's fading words in his ears, his voice tender and afraid in a way it had never been, as darkness began to pull him under.

Somehow it was even worse now.

Saying the words out loud seemed to make something fold and break into two in Dean, because then he crumpled in his voice and body, in all of him, doubling over Sam like something was physically shredding him apart from the inside, a shattered, mournful, hitched gasp of, "oh, God," ripping from his throat.

Never had Sam heard him sound like this, or act like this, and in all honesty, he hoped he never would again. The sound and sight shredded painfully into his chest like a gash.

"Dean? Hey," he said softly, tried to tug his hand out of where they were trapped between them and touch his arm. Sam felt at an awful loss on what to do right now, what to say. He had known this was coming, but trying to prepare for it all mentally was an entirely different thing than really being in the situation. "Hey. It's okay. I'm okay. Everything's okay."

Sam wasn't entirely sure that Dean remembered the kind of situation they were in. He didn't really know if it was right to remind him that he wasn't his Sam.

And then Dean was burying his face into his hair and he was weeping, painfully silent, all attempt at maintaining composure drained right out of him. His body was seized and he was crying so hard he wasn't making a sound, dripping salt water into Sam's hair, and he was trembling all around him like a mini earthquake with his grief, and Sam didn't know what to do to make it better, had never really thought in his life that one day he would have to see his tough-as-nails, snarky and stoic big brother like this and try to comfort him.

So now he just felt utterly lost and helpless, and like there wasn't enough space in his chest for the sorrow swelling up his rawed heart and pressing up against his sternum.

He had seen him break only a handful of types; the time Sam got hurt bad enough that he almost died in a hospital, the first time they were too close to losing their father, and when they did lose him, and when he spoke of what their father did to save him and of what happened to him in Hell…

But he couldn't remember a time that he had crumbled like this.

"Sammy." The name was said with barely any voice, only a tremor of a cracked, frail breath between the soundless sobs seizing his body. Fingers pulled him in closer by the nape of his neck, sliding up into the back of his head. Dean's arms tightened, his crumpled mouth pressing into his hairline.

"It's okay," Sam murmured, blinking back the blur in his own vision, and after managing to free his arms fully, wrapped it around his waist. His heart clenched in his chest with agony. Dean had come trying to comfort him even when he was barely able to keep himself together. Sam didn't know what he did that was so bad that it would rip him apart like this, but it was killing Dean inside and it was killing Sam inside to see it too. "It's okay. I got you."

Everything Sam had done to him, even if it was another world, in a time when his grip over everything was so slippery; over reality, his sanity, his emotions, his mind and his control. Sam had been the oil in his grip, just making it all even worse.

He swallowed down the pain drowning him from the inside, drowning his heart in water. "It wasn't your fault, Dean," he told him, only just above a whisper. Sam tried to look at him, but he couldn't move much in the grasp. "It wasn't you. You didn't do anything wrong."

But Dean was still shaking around him, the grasp around him nearly desperate, like he was the only thing he could hold onto, a lifeline for a drowning man, and Sam didn't know if anything he could say would ever make it better.

Sam didn't really know the right thing to say anymore, so he didn't say anything. He let Dean hold him and held him back and he let Dean fall apart in the dark around him like he had never fallen apart before, wishing he wasn't feeling so helpless and useless, wishing he could take it all away from his brother's mind and heart; all the memories of Hell and the things he had done under the influence of its effects that stole away all of his sanity and control, that changed him into someone full of abhorrence and rage and violence; the shame and self-loathing and the suffocating anguish and grief that filled the room like smoke, that filled into Sam's lungs too and made it hard to breathe.

**…**

Dean fell asleep around him like that, exhausted from weeping so terribly over whatever memories haunted him in his mind of another world, that Sam would never be able to reach and know of.

**…**

He brought the breakfast to his brother's bed the next morning.

Dean was awake by then, slumped up against the headboard like he couldn't move any more after that, blanket tangled around his legs. Haunted eyes, red-rimmed and sunken still, stared off somewhere beyond the present moment, towards the window pouring in sunlight.

"Hey," Sam greeted, his voice sounding somewhat tentative to his own ears.

Dean didn't acknowledge his presence right away. Sam couldn't tell if he didn't hear him or just chose not to show any indication of it.

"Got you breakfast." He held up the tray a little higher for emphasis.

Dean didn't give him any verbal answer, but he turned his head and glanced at Sam (somehow entirely different in his motions than he had been before he changed), grim grief weighted and etched in his gaze.

Sam gingerly sat down next to him on the edge of the bed with an awkward smile, trying to make things feel light and easy, except he didn't feel like he was doing it right, trying too hard, everything too forced. He settled the tray down between them on the mattress.

The room collapsed into silence. Sam wracked his brain trying to think of what to say, how to ask about his mental state in a way that didn't sound redundant or stupid.

There wasn't really any way to ask it like that, he supposed.

So he sat silently instead.

He didn't know how this whole thing worked, if it worked in parallel to the other universe, if all of this meant that his own Dean had changed to this extent as well.

Sam was startled to feel fingers on his wrist, and regretted it immediately when the fingers retreated quickly. He looked up to see Dean looking back at him, green eyes brittle and wrecked.

"Sorry, I just, um… I wasn't expecting…"

Dean nodded, looking away.

Sam shifted closer, sitting until his hip was touching against Dean's thigh, hoping that the contact would get the message across. "I'm not scared, you know. I mean, I-I'm not even him. So… so you don't have to worry. About that."

Sam hoped Dean didn't remember what had happened between them before he left, but with their shitty luck, he probably did, even if he didn't mention it.

For a moment, Sam didn't think he would respond.

And then he did. "If you knew how much I hurt you," Dean rasped, voice strained and low and painfully weary, like it was grating him to even talk. "you would be."

"Yeah, well, whatever you did," Sam said. He shrugged slightly. "It couldn't have been anything more than what I had coming."

But the way Dean's face crumpled briefly, still stung red from last night, made Sam think those weren't the words he needed to hear.

"Dean," Sam said, his voice growing softer. "I know you did everything you could to stop it from happening, because I know  _you_. And if it happened anyway? It was because there was nothing more you could have done."

But Dean wasn't really listening, wasn't looking at him anymore. He was looking somewhere past Sam's shoulder, but maybe he wasn't really seeing anything at all. Panic began to rise in Sam's chest for a brief moment with a sharp jolt of fear, wondering if Dean was going back into his catatonic state again.

"He… he was crying," he then said, quiet, seemingly watching a memory play in his mind's eye. "And scared. And he was hurt. And I..." His voice caught, mouth closing. His throat flexed in a swallow. "I kept on hurting him. I just kept… he kept apologizing and I kept... I was supposed to protect him. Keep him safe."

Dean's hand raised tremulously, running down his chin. He rested his fingers against his quivering lips, shaking his head. His green eyes were pinched and still afar, rimmed pink, a thin film of anguish and grief and shame shining in them.

"I made him cry," he mumbled, face twisting brokenly. "I made my baby brother cry.'

Sam didn't really know what to say anymore, but that seemed to be a common thing with him now.

He couldn't really imagine it. Dean, hurting him so bad that he could be so shattered over it like this.

Dean was rough, angry and aggressive sometimes if he was provoked or if it was needed. Being a hunter, growing up fighting and killing evil creatures, would harden the edges of anyone like that.

But he was also painfully gentle and kind in ways Sam had never seen in many other hunters. Not necessarily in any obvious way. He wasn't the one that consoled traumatized victims, leaving that to Sam instead. He didn't like expressing emotions and talking about feelings. He was physically affectionate, but only in the subtlest ways, and he wasn't one to tell people he loved them outright.

Sam saw that side of Dean in fleeting moments. He saw it with children, particularly children that suffered something terrible.

He had seen it with their father, the way he used to take care of him when he came back from a bad hunt, or when he was grieving and drunk on the anniversary of their mother's death.

He saw it with himself.

There were a handful of times he had caught Dean looking at him when they were on better terms, a sort of impossible tenderness that vanished in a split-second blink, as soon as Sam looked at him. The difference between his father's rough, calloused hands and his brother's careful ones when they patched him up. And how Dean felt as much as he pretended he didn't, felt so much that Sam worried it was going to break him one day in the life they lived. He felt so much guilt and shame and fear and anger and responsibility. And he felt so much love that, if Sam really thought about it, it came through in so much of what Dean said and did.

Sam couldn't entirely reconcile the man he was with the man that tortured him. In a way, Sam saw him as being controlled or possessed by something. And he called him Dean and he called him his brother but he had never really  _felt_  like Dean. Not really. It felt like it was something that was supposed to be fixed, and to imagine that there was a Sam out there who accepted that man as his own Dean, who made it all a part of his life, whose image of Dean was someone who could hurt him deliberately without a shred of remorse, hurt him so bad that it broke him, was…

Strange, Sam supposed.

Sam felt fingers on his face. He made sure to keep himself still.

Dean was watching his own trembling fingers in this glazed and distant way, swollen and raw eyes darting, following, like he was mapping and tracing and recounting. Remembering. The grief and anguish in his pinched gaze was intensifying.

Sam caught his fingers lightly, startling Dean out of his haze. He scooted forward and pulled his brother into a hug by the front of his shirt, pressing his face into his shoulder.

It took a long while for Dean to reciprocate, but he did, hands coming up to his shoulderblades. He choked into Sam's shoulder, maybe on the verge of flying apart again. Sam gripped him tight, smoothing his palm over the back of his neck. "It's okay, Dean," he mumbled, feeling helpless and useless for not knowing what to really do, for not knowing anything better than this. "It's okay. I got you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: 
> 
> In clarification, Sam's feelings and thoughts (of deserving the abuse. No one can ever deserve something like this) does not reflect my personal thoughts about the situation, but my idea is that both of the Winchesters would feel compassionate and sorrowful towards the other's situation in the other world, but would not feel as kindly towards themselves (or their other versions of themselves).
> 
> Thank you so, so much to everyone for all of their kind and lovely feedback, for sharing your thoughts on the chapter! As always, I love hearing them. And I'm grateful beyond words for all the love and support! Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're all awesome, and I'm so happy you're enjoying the story.
> 
> Thank you for all the bookmarks, kudos and subscriptions. Thank you to everyone reading, silent and otherwise. Thank you so, so much 💙


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: 12th paragraph has brief references to past abuse

 

 

**Alternate Universe**

 

_One Month Later_

 

About a week ago, Dean told Sam to drive them to Bobby's and lock him in the panic room.

And Sam did.

It was like watching it happen all over again, except he already knew where it ended, because he had already found himself at the end of it once.

Except it was worse.

These past few years of their lives, Sam felt like they have just been stuck in this sickening cycle, constantly on the brink of losing his brother, constantly getting him back just to lose him all over again in different ways.

In these last many months, Sam had forced himself to accept that he would never get what they had back, that he had thrown it all away with his abominable actions and that this was his life sentence.

And then to get it all back, to get  _Dean_  back had been…

Before Sam had found out about what was happening to Dean, he had barely even been  _trying_ to find a way to reverse their situation. He didn't mean to do it on purpose, didn't just think to himself that he wasn't going to try to send Dean back to his world because he wanted him to stay, wanted it to last forever even when he knew it couldn't.

But everytime he had tried to work on trying to find a solution, he had found himself frozen, found himself stuck staring at a page of one of the books Bobby had given him, found himself so shaky and sick at the thought of it all going away like an illusion that never happened that he couldn't think straight. And he would tell himself,  _Dean needed to go back. He wanted to. He had to._

And then he would think about the way Dean called him  _Sammy_  and _little brothe_ r and told him he did good on the hunt and on his research work, and how he turned up his music and how he inhaled his food and pie and smiled at Sam in that quirky and tender way he did.

And he would think about the horrible jokes that Dean made to make him laugh, and the way he talked to him about things like movies and girls and cars, the way he played pool and drank beer with him and teased him about his food and hair.

And he didn't hate Sam so much he couldn't even stand it when he touched him, and he didn't look at Sam like he was worse than anything they've ever hunted in their lives, and he didn't think Sam was disgusting and sick and worth nothing, and he didn't hit him when he screwed up and he didn't tell him he should have let him die back in Cold Oak. And he loved him (still loved him, even though he didn't deserve it). And...

And Sam would tell himself, _later. I'll look at it later._

And later would never come.

But Sam knew.

He knew. He really did.

Sam was his brother. He was Sam. This Dean, the man his own Dean once used to be, would love him in any world, because that was the kind of big brother Dean was.

But it didn't change the fact that he wasn't the Sam Dean wanted.

Whatever Dean knew him to be, Sam was a mere shell of that. And for all of Dean's unconditional and boundless love, even after everything, Sam doubted Dean was too keen on being stuck with the screwed up and useless piece of shit version of his brother, one who was always seemingly on the brink of losing it. And Sam didn't want that for him either. He didn't.

But well, he just.

He just didn't want it all to go away. Didn't want him to go.

He supposed that now, either way, things were going back to the way they used to be, one way or another. And the best thing Sam could do was make sure that this Dean never had to feel the things that his own Dean did any more than he already had, the loss of his sanity and mind and control (that was the worst part, wasn't it? The middle part?), that he didn't have to bear the effects of someone else's trauma too on top of his own and he didn't have to deal with a younger brother that wasn't quite right anymore in even more ways than he already had been.

Dean didn't know what Sam put him through the past year, how he wasn't there, how he made everything worse even after Dean begged him to stop, because he was selfish and self-righteous and arrogant, and he cared about the high and about being right more than he cared about his big brother.

Sam wasn't entirely sure what he would think of him if he did know.

This time, though. This time, Sam was going to do it right. He was going to be there for him. He wasn't going to let him be alone in this until they found a way to get him back to where he came from.

For a time, it worked. He stayed with Dean and he tried his hardest to pull him back from it, sitting beside him on the edge of the cot and trying to get his mind to come back into focus, away from the horror and darkness. And sometimes, Dean lost control of his words (and maybe it was going to be one more thing Sam would fall asleep replaying in his mind over and over, but he knew Dean didn't really mean it), but Sam stayed anyway until he came back blinking into awareness.

And then it didn't work anymore.

And then Dean was telling him to leave, and Sam was telling him, _I'm not going to leave you._

And Dean was gritting out, _you're making it worse._

Whatever look Sam had on his face had to have been as jarred as the way he felt, enough for Dean's voice to have become laden with a struggle between guilt and urgency and hostility, his words a low plea,  _just go, okay? I just. Please Sammy. You being here. It's just making it worse._

It seemed like that was all Sam knew how to do these days (these months, years).

He knew Dean just didn't want to hurt him, but somehow that hurt worse than anything else he could have said. Not because of it being anything to do with Dean, but because that had been the one thing he had been trying  _not_  to do, the one thing he wished he didn't do anymore.

And then Sam thought that it wasn't like he chose the best time to try and help. The time to not leave Dean alone in all of this was before Sam screwed up everything in every single way he could, before the darkness had anything to feed on regarding him.

He sat outside the door, just to feel like he was there, like he wasn't just leaving Dean alone in this.

But it didn't take away his sense of uselessness and helplessness in the least.

…

When Sam came into the panic room this time, believing Dean was asleep, he found that he wasn't.

When the metal door creaked wider, Dean's eyes opened and turned to him, and Sam halted in his steps. Dean wasn't very welcoming to his visits these days, and at this point, it wasn't so clear anymore as to whether it was to protect him or because he just couldn't stand him anymore. So he tried to be there when Dean wasn't awake, cleaned his wrists if they got bleeding blisters because the protective pads between them fell off and sat there listening to him breathe in his sleep until he stirred back into the living word.

To his astonishment, Dean waved him over into the room, "S'okay, Sammy." His voice was strained with fatigue and so low Sam almost didn't understand, but he sounded okay. "Come 'ere."

For a moment, the shock of it rooted his leaden feet to the spot. It seemed to have taken over him completely these days.

When he managed to gather himself, Sam walked inside as he pushed the heavy metal door behind him to nearly close. His steps were carefully controlled and slow, trying not to seem like his child self running to his older brother at the end of school.

He settled into his place beside Dean on the edge of the cot, smiling somewhat twitchily. On one hand, he was relieved to see Dean in this moment of clarity and lucidity again. On the other hand, the unpredictability of it all kept him uneasy and guarded.

"Hey," Sam said, hushedly.

"Hey." Dean sounded like himself again, and Sam felt the sting of emotion in his eyes and face. He swallowed and blinked it back.

Dean rolled slightly to the side, trying to push himself up into a sitting position. Sam quickly bent forward, hesitating only for the briefest moment at the uncertainty as to whether his touch and aiding attempts would be received positively or not, before grabbing his older brother's shoulders to help him up. He was secretly pleased to find that Dean didn't pull away from him.

For a moment, nothing happened. Dean was looking at him silently. The muscle in his jaw ticked, his eyes tired and somber.

And that was when Sam started feeling it.

The pit of  _wrong_  in his gut.

He looked something rueful and grim, and Sam could feel it in the way he looked at him. Feel something bad coming, even when Dean smiled at him slightly in an attempt to hide it, to reassure him in a falsified sense of  _everything is okay,_  the way he always did in the midst of all of their hurricanes and tornadoes.

Sam wanted to say something to break whatever it was in the room, wanted to push it away with trivial conversation and pretend nothing that might flip his world upside down was about to happen.

In the end, he should have known things never worked that way.

He waited instead, even when his heart was beginning to thump against his chest for seemingly no present reason at all.

"Need you t'promise me somethin'," Dean started with.

_Anything_ , Sam wanted to say, but somehow he felt like this was where the pit of  _wrong_  came from.

Sam waited for an elaboration. It didn't come, because Dean was waiting on a response.

"Okay," Sam said, somewhat questioning, but open.

"When you get me outta here," Dean said, his voice rough and drained. "and… and  _he_  comes back…"

Sam's brows twitched, furrowing together.

"Keep your gun on you, you hear me?"

For a moment, he didn't really understand. He heard the words, the shape of their sounds in Dean's voice, but he couldn't seem to process what Dean was saying, what he meant.

"You understand?" Dean pressed, his stare hard and solemn. "Keep your gun on you. Shoot him at the first sign of movement. Promise me you'll do that. For me."

When it registered, the only thing he could do was stare at him like a dumb ass, like Dean had suddenly grown two heads. Sam shook his head, face knotted with confusion.

"Why... why are you saying that?" were the only words Sam could manage to fumble out of his mouth.

How could he say that?

"Sammy, listen to me—"

"No!" Sam was beginning to push away, on the verge of shooting to his feet and running away so he wouldn't have to hear any of this, but Dean's free hand lurched out and gripped his wrist tightly.

"Listen to me," Dean said firmly, moving his hand up to pull him closer by the collar. "You think he would want this? If he was in his right mind? You think he would  _ever_ …"

"You don't understand."

"I do."

"No, you don't. You don't." He was shaking his head, frantic and fast, his voice frantic and fast too. Dean didn't know what  _happened_. He didn't  _know_  what... "Y-you don't know what happened here. You don't…"

"I do."

"No, you don't!" Sam's voice rose, nearly a yell. He swallowed, closed his eyes and tried to breathe deeply and calm down, tried to speak through his breaths growing short and rapid. His vision was growing blurry. His heart was pounding. His stomach hurt. "You—you came back, and you were hurting, and you were scared. God, you were so scared, and I wasn't there, I wasn't… I just made it  _worse_. I-I just kept...kept pushing and you were...you were begging me to stop and I didn't—"

"I know," Dean said, gripping his chin and forcing him to meet his eyes steadily, willing him to settle down with his gaze. "Sammy, I know. I dreamt of everything. I know all of it."

"Then don't say that to me," Sam gritted out. "Don't tell me to just… just kill him. Everything he became… it's not his  _fault_. He didn't… I made him become like that. And now I'm just making up for—"

"Sammy," Dean said, firm eyes softening slightly with sorrow. The childish nickname in his voice was soft too. "Sammy, god, you're… you're wrong. You're so fucking wrong. This… this isn't how you make things right. This isn't how you 'make up for it'. Letting him hurt you isn't the way, okay? Stopping the apocalypse is."

"It may not be the way, but I deserve it anyway," Sam said, shaking his head out of Dean's grasp, and he felt tired again, like he always did now, like the weight in his chest might pull him through the ground, like he didn't ever want to move an inch again. It came in his voice like the air in his lungs was knocked out of him. "Look, I get it. You're—you're a good person, Dean, and you don't want this to happen. And I wish you never had to see it, but...but this is my life, okay? You don't have to worry about me, about what happens to me after you're gone."

Knowing this Dean, Sam thought he would anyway, but he didn't have to. Sam made his bed, and he made his choices, and he made his choice to lie in it, and nothing was going to stray him from it. And nothing was going to make him give up on his brother.

"What he became," Dean said, quiet. "It wasn't because of you. It was because he made a choice, to save you, because you were his baby brother and he couldn't let you go, Sammy. It was his own choice." He took ahold of his chin again, holding eye-contact as if he was willing him to understand. "And the way he came back? The way he came back… whatever you did or didn't do, it would have consumed him anyway, one way or another."

"You don't know that." Sam shook his head, frowning to hold back the burn in his eyes from growing into more. "You don't…"

"This… this guy you're trying to… to help in this fucked up way of yours. He ain't even me, man," Dean argued.

"It doesn't matter."

"He stopped being me when he stopped giving a shit about the kid he raised. When he started layin' his hand on you."

Sam's face twitched, twisting briefly with the sorrow that twisted in his heart. He blinked rapidly.

"But when he was in his right mind," Dean continued. "He loved you so much that he tried to end his life, because he couldn't bear the thought of hurting you again."

Sam's head snapped up, eyes wide.

"What?" The words came out small, frail, without much air behind it.

"My point is that he didn't want this for you, kiddo. Take it from me." Dean released his chin and ran a hand over his hair, smiling a sad half-smile that came out more like a tight grimace.

And there, Sam's entire world swayed and tilted, everything crashing down around him, inside of him, something inside of him snapping apart and flying into pieces.

The world looked surreal, edges too sharp and colors too bright and lights too dim. Everything that happened to him felt like it happened to somebody else instead, and he had been stuck inside his own body this entire time, watching it all. All the agony and grief and terror.

He was staring at Dean's face, so impossibly tender with sorrow and love and desperation, and he was thinking of his own Dean full of his own sorrow and love and desperation, and he was holding a knife to his own throat, a gun to his head, a bottle of pills in his hand. And Sam had never known. Didn't even know how he tried to do it, tried to keep Sam safe from himself, and what made him change his mind. And what kind of a brother was he? That he didn't even know just how bad it had gotten? How far his brother was pushed? How broken he had been?

And Dean had loved him so much that he couldn't bear the thought of hurting him again.

And if Dean ever came back to him, and he knew now...

"I… I don't…" His mouth was dry, his heart hammering, throbbing. He blinked, the suffocating pressure in his chest reaching up to his eyes.

Dean's hand wrapped around the side of his neck, squeezing comfortingly.

…

There was a man in the guest room, short and brown-haired. He was reclined back on a pillow held up against the headboard of the bed, one arm casually under the back of his head, the other hand holding a lollipop to his mouth.

It didn't take more than a second to register who,  _what_ , he was looking at.

"Hiya, Sammich."

Sam scrambled for the gun in his waistband, tugging it off in one swift motion and aiming it at him. It wouldn't be of any use against the being he was facing off against, but it made him feel safer and, if nothing else, it could serve as a brief distraction if needed.

The last time he saw the demigod, he had made Sam relive his brother's death over a hundred times to teach him some sort of screwed up lesson about letting Dean go in the year after his deal.

"What are you doing here?"

It was in that exact second, right as the question was asked, that it occurred to Sam that the reason why he might be here was because he was the one behind this entire mess.

"I'm here to put everyone back where they came from," Loki said, like they were figures in a dollhouse. He popped the sucker back in his mouth, and then continued to speak around it, "You know your little fire stick there can't hurt me, right? So you might as well just put it down."

Sam breathed an inhale through his nose, calming himself. Loki didn't seem to have any ill intentions, besides what he had already done (besides giving Sam everything he thought he would never have again and coming back just to take it away. Then again, he supposed he'd already lost it all). He lowered the gun, tucking it back into his waistband.

Suddenly, the exhaustion was setting in, his muscles feeling like lead, weighed down by the heaviness in his chest.

"Why?" Sam asked, his voice on the edge of breathlessly tired, shaking his head slightly. "What was the… the  _point_  of all of this?"

Loki tugged the sucker out. It vanished out of his hands into thin air.

"The point, Sam…" He slowly pulled himself up to sit upright, sliding off the bed. "The point is that I did some thinking… and I decided that I don't want Lucifer and Michael fighting in some grand finale showdown that burns half the world to a crisp. I don't want any of them to win. I don't want this world to end." He paused.

Sam waited. When seconds went by without any further elaboration, he raised his eyebrows. "So?"

Loki hopped to his feet.

"You and your brother?" he said, stepping closer to Sam. "You two are ticking time bombs."

Sam's brows furrowed in puzzlement.

"As long as one or both of you are alive,  _and_  in this mess you're in," Loki said, low and grave. "it is guaranteed that one of you will say yes, one way or another. Dean is vulnerable because he isn't in his right mind," He pointed at him. "and  _you_  are vulnerable because neither are you. Because one day you won't be able to take what he's putting you through, and then how hard is it really going to be for them to pull your strings?"

"You don't know anything," Sam said. He wasn't even sure how he found out about all of  _this_.

"It sounds pretty obvious to me, kiddo."

Sam shook his head. There were so many questions circulating in his head. "Why go through all this? Why not just kill Dean?" He didn't want that, wouldn't have let it even happen, but it didn't make sense as to why that wasn't the trickster's first route to achieving his goal because God knew Sam would follow right after him, if there wasn't anything else, if there wasn't any way to bring him back. He would have, when Dean died and went to Hell, but that would have renounced Dean's sacrifice, everything Dean suffered for him.

"Kill Dean and have you come after my ass for the rest of your life?" Loki laughed mirthlessly. "No thanks. Learned my lesson the first time. It would be too much inconvenience, for one, and two, you won't rest until you get me, and that won't ever happen, and you  _really_  fucking lose your shit when you don't have the guy with you so chances are you probably end up breaking something anyway."

"You could have killed both of us, then. Seems pretty unnecessary to stretch it all out like this." Sam was grasping for something, something that proved that he was screwing with them, that he had another entirely hidden agenda.

"I could have killed both of you, sure, but… well, even though I'm not particularly fond of humans, since they're corrupted and fragile little shits, I don't hate you. Or your brother." He hummed, shrugging. "At least, before he turned into a douchebag."

" _You_  don't get to talk about him like that," Sam grinded out irritatedly. Out of all the people in the world...

Loki whistled. "Damn. The Stockholm Syndrome is strong in this one."

"So what?" Sam asked, shaking his head. "Your… your brilliant plan was to get some alternate version of my brother to convince me to...to kill  _my_ Dean? And then what, I off myself too?" Sam wasn't sure if Loki let Dean in on that last part of the plan.

But he supposed that even if it hadn't been a part of the trickster's plan, it would have been a part of Sam's anyway.

"Bingo," Loki said. "No one else would have made you see sense better, so I brought him in to do the job."

"Well, it sucks," Sam scoffed. What happened then? They died. Dean went to heaven, where the angels could still get him. Sam went to Hell, where the demons could get him. So what was the point?

"Maybe," Loki shrugged. "But if you want to save the world, ensure that Michael and Lucifer don't get what they want, this is the way. You both die, I scatter your molecules across the globe so that no one can bring you back and preserve your souls somewhere safe, until all of this is over. The world will still suffer some, but it won't be as bad as what would happen to it if either of you give the archangels a ride."

"And then?"

"And then." Loki stepped back, opening his arms out with a slight, brandishing tilt of his head. "you both live happily ever after in your shared heaven."

The idea of peace, of an end, of an eternity with his brother sounded far too appealing to Sam, even if he wasn't entirely sure he deserved it.

"Assuming this even works, is Dean… is he going to be himself? In heaven?"

"100%, kiddo," the trickster said, his voice softening slightly, strangely. "The effect of every impurity tarnishing your soul is removed when you enter through the pearly white gates."

Sam nodded, something in his chest loosening and tugging his lips into an imperceptible ghost of a relieved smile. That would be good. Maybe not just for Dean, but for Sam himself too.

And then another thought occurred to him, his face sobering.

"You… you have all this power… why can't you just fix my brother? Wouldn't that solve a lot of it?"

"I could try. But it's a long delicate process, one that I don't have a knack, patience or focus for. It could go wrong in too many ways. It's gonna hurt like hell too. As in _literally_. Like reliving every bit of pain he went through in Hell. All at once. High chance he won't survive it. And I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but I don't think you want that for him."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: You ever come up with an idea that sounds pretty good at the time, and then you type it down, and you're like, what in the fuck was I thinking
> 
> This chapter is it for me.
> 
> But I have to get it out of the way. i realize now the explanation probably has a lot of holes in it, but it's what I came up with. I'll mention why this whole thing stretched out so much. It's nothing special though and fairly obvious.
> 
> Hopefully I do the next (and last) chapter better, and that you like the ending.
> 
> Thank you so, so much to everyone who left such kind comments, for all the kudos, bookmarks and subscriptions. Thank you to everyone who read all the way until here. The response I got for the story has been absolutely humbling and mindblowing. <3
> 
> I hope you all stay tuned for the last chapter and that you like what I do with it. 💙

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: Hello! The story I wrote previously was: s/7905865/1/Abusing-Forgiveness
> 
> You may notice the writing is awful. Hence, I wanted to do justice to a brilliant story idea, one with so much potential for angst, brotherly love and healing, now that I've improved somewhat as an author.
> 
> I hope you liked the chapter and will stay tuned for the next!
> 
> Title is taken from Streets of Philadelphia originally by Bruce Springsteen, but I love The Fray's soft cover of it. I might change it though at some point in the future, if I ever find one more suitable, but for now, the lyrics go pretty well with this story. If you're interested, do check it out!


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